Walking the Ulster Way....

(Blog title recommended by our friend Adam who was our tour guide to Crawfordsburn Park)

On Sunday afternoon we went to Crawfordsburn Park in East Belfast.  We were surprised at how woodsy and scenic it was.

It had a few open fields full of wildflowers...

But soon we were walking along a wooded path beside water.....

Then this random giant bridge was in one of the clearings.....

Then through the woods some more, we stumbled upon a small waterfall.....

 And then a really big waterfall....

Um, I really like this door....a lot....Adam said it led to Narnia...I wish....

Somewhere along the path we saw a sign that we were walking on the Ulster Way....

Cave Hill Adventure....

This is what we see everyday when we walk to work, school, or church...

The mountain in the distance is Cave Hill, about 5 miles north of where we live.  It is sometimes called Napoleon's nose because if you look at it from the side it looks like a face.  Back in October we took a trip to Belfast Castle which is on the side of the mountain (you can view that trip here: Special Days), but we didn't have the chance to go to the top of Cave Hill then.  So, we both wanted to go back and finally made the trip a few weeks ago.

The trip itself was a fun adventure.  We rode our bikes along the bikepath that follows the Lagan River into the city centre.  We parked our bikes and walked to the bus stop, taking a bus like you see in the above picture all the way to Cave Hill Park.  Then we got to climb the mountain!

Yes, this is why it is called Cave Hill.

There were pretty wildflowers and heather everywhere.

View of McArt's Fort

It was a bit of a hazy day, but this is looking down on the city from McArt's Fort.

After climbing Cave Hill, we went back to the city centre to Starbucks.

The City Hall had the Olympic rings up because Northern Ireland is a part of the UK--the Olympic host country.  I (Autumn) really enjoyed getting to watch the Olympics from a different country especially the host country!  Definitely a different perspective.

Albert Clock

The Fish

These two pictures above are two of Belfast's landmarks.  The Fish has a mosaic of different pictures of people and places, one of them being Albert Clock below.

We had a fun day, and it was nice to take a little adventure around the city....

Summer?

It's August already?

Bare with us while we play catch-up on our summer happenings....

1.  It's been the wettest June and July in the UK ever.  It's also been pretty chilly.  The combination of these two things don't really make it feel like summer, especially when we hear of temperatures that are 40 degrees (F) warmer back home.  There have been more days than I can count when we got soaked walking...not fun.  Because of all the rain, we get slugs....in our house.  That's no fun either.
 One cool thing about the summer here is how long it stays light outside.  We had daylight from about 4am to 11pm in late June.

2.  BBQ--If you're from the South this means an entirely different thing to you than it does here.  Here, a BBQ is like a cookout, and in June we went to one with our fellowship group from church and another for the entire church. 

Here's the one with our fellowship group:

Unfortunately the weather didn't turn out so well for the full church BBQ:

I gave up taking pictures in the monsoon (it rained three hours straight and we had lightning/thunder for the first time since we've been here), but despite the rain, it was a nice time--there was a giant teepee, a bouncy castle, ice cream truck, archery, and other things as well. 

We have thoroughly been blessed by our church here.  They have loved us, befriended us, fed us, given us rides, let us borrow bikes, taken us to concerts and to see places around the country, and given us countless cups of tea and coffee.  We just cannot thank them or say enough about all of them.  We fully did not expect to find a church that felt so much like home to us here, but it really has been a haven and has helped us grow spiritually as well.

3.  Seven words I (Autumn) never expected to say: I work for the Irish Football Association (American friends that means soccer).  It took eight months for me to find a job here, and when I finally did, it was not at a place I expected for two reasons---1. I know pretty much nothing about soccer/football (except to call it football anywhere outside the USA) and 2. I am not Irish (Okay, it might be in my blood somewhere).  The job has been great though and I am really enjoying doing Admin work again.  It's just a temporary four month position, but we are thankful for God's provision of a job while we're here.

4.  Casey has been working hard on his thesis and as of yesterday has 15,000 out of 20,000 words completed!  He has to turn it in mid-September, so continue to pray for him as he finishes strong.  With Casey finishing his paper, we have been planning our next moves and over the summer we decided we will head back to the US on October 2nd.  We are looking forward to seeing family, but are sad to leave our friends here in Northern Ireland.

Okay, I think we're caught up.... :)

Visit to Londonderry and the Queen's Jubilee....

So I'm a month behind on this, but at the beginning of June we had a holiday to celebrate the Queen of England here and we spent the day with some other friends from church visiting the city of Londonderry/Derry.

Londonderry, or as it is also known, Derry, is the oldest fully intact walled city in Europe.

The walls surround the entire central part of the city.  In the center of the city is a diamond shaped roundabout with four main streets jutting off of it.  Up on the city walls we visited St. Columb's cathedral (below)

Inside St. Columb's cathedral

Each pew had hand-carved wood on the ends.  We were told that each one was different.  Amazing!

I mentioned the holiday for the Queen....well, we just missed the celebration for her at the cathedral, but we did get in on the tea time....

So yeah, the Queen....she's sort of a big deal around here.  This year is her 60th year on the throne, so she gave everyone a holiday to celebrate, which was pretty nice of her.  While the Queen was celebrating big in England in early June (when we were in Londonderry), she did make an appearance here in Northern Ireland two weeks ago as part of her big Diamond Jubilee.  Unfortunately, we didn't actually see her, but she was five minutes from our house!!

So enough about the Queen.....here's more of Derry....

 Londonderry has a really interesting history that is rather hard to explain, but there was a time called the Troubles in the 1970s and 80s when Catholics and Protestants didn't get along here in Northern Ireland.  There were a lot of problems in Derry.  Below is the Peace Bridge which is a footbridge across the River Foyle that connects the East and West sides of the city.  It just opened last year to bring the city together.

As you can tell we learned a lot of history and had a full day touring the city.  Thanks to our friends Nigel and Carolyn for a fun day and for taking us to see the Gettys in concert that night!!!

Casey with our friends Nigel and Carolyn

A Place Called Kilkeel....

We've mentioned before that we've met a lot of nice people here....

Our friends from church, Adam and Lynn, invited us to visit their hometown, Kilkeel, for a weekend.  Kilkeel is near the sea and  Mourne Mountains (where I was in the previous post).  Adam and Casey had been trying to go golfing together for months somewhere around Belfast, so that sort of sparked the trip for all of us to go down to Kilkeel for the weekend.

We stayed at Lynn's parents' house where we learned to play Rummikub on Friday night.  Sadly, the guys won all three rounds...

On Saturday Adam and Casey went golfing and Lynn and I went to a butterfly house and garden!

There were peacocks roaming around the garden!

Bluebells!

I wish I could've had a wedding photo at this little spot...love love love!

Then Lynn took me to Kilkeel harbour and to see Green Castle!

 I wish I had more pictures of the countryside in Kilkeel because there are tons of sheep and rolling green hills.  I did manage to get one....

After that, we met the guys and went to a place called Silent Valley.....

Silent Valley is a reservoir in the Mourne Mountains.  It was a bit cloudy but still beautiful.  The craziest thing happened while we were there.  We asked some people walking by if they would take a picture of the four of us, and after getting the photo we started to chat about where we were from.  The lady who took the photo was from North Carolina like us, but not only that, her husband taught at Southeastern just before we were there!  About that time, her husband walked up and we all had a chat, but it was really strange to be up in the mountains in Northern Ireland and meet people from home!  It really is a small world!

We had a great time with Adam and Lynn and loved seeing another part of the country. 

A Day in the Mountains

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine from fitness class found out I hadn't been to see the Mourne Mountains yet.  The Mournes are the highest mountains in Northern Ireland and are considered to be one of the inspirations for C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia.  So, of course when my friend, Edel, asked if I wanted to make a girls' trip out of it, I said yes! (Sorry Casey!) 

This past Saturday, Edel and I went on our hike up Slieve Donard--the highest peak in Northern Ireland at 850 metres or 2,790 feet.  It is less than half the height of a lot of peaks in my home state of NC, but since there are no trees for much of the climb, it created some breathtaking views of the other peaks, the sea below, and towns far away.  I also wouldn't consider it an easy climb--I could barely walk the next two days!

The hike started out with dense forest and waterfalls, a lot like hikes I've been on in the NC mountains...

Once through the forest, I turned around for this view....

And looking at what was ahead to climb....You can't even see the top of the mountain we were climbing from here..it's hiding behind the others!!

Below is the rock wall that was built back in the early 1900s to set a boundary for the nearby reservoir.  It goes over many of the peaks. We stopped for lunch when I took this photo, but this was our last steep climb to the top!

We made it!!!

 And back down again....

 

 The town of Newcastle....

And the sea!

Thanks for bearing with all the photos...I had trouble narrowing them down.
I'm so glad Edel took me on this adventure.  It gave me a chance to get to know her a bit better and I got to see another part of Northern Ireland!

Next time I'll take Casey :)