Saturday, June 4, 2011

exploring north down

Today was a wonderful reminder of how much I love Ireland. I was busy this morning doing laundry and a bit of school work (thought I was finished with work for the year but no...) then, around lunch time my friend Rachel came and picked me up. We drove around for a while, generally heading out to the Ard's peninsula. We had a picnic lunch on the shores of Strangford Lough. Not too far away from the site where this picture was taken.

And our view was very similar. The day had started out sunny and warm, but by the time we stopped for lunch was overcast and cool There were dozens of sailboats and windsurfers out on the Lough and we saw a seal swimming by as well. It was lovely.

From the Lough we headed over to Crawfordsburn Country Park (seriously, visit the link they have virtual tours of the park and it's beautiful) where we went for a lovely walk along the coast, past a wildflower meadow, and through the woods.

We rounded out the afternoon with tea at The Bay Tree in Holywood. For months I've been hearing stories about the cinnamon scones at The Bay Tree, they are legendary. Let me tell you, they did not disappoint! Something of a cross between scones and cinnamon rolls... a-mazing!

It was a wonderful, lovely day full of the beautiful Irish landscape, good chats, and amazing food. Just what my heart needed. I think it would be a good idea to have at least a monthly excursion of some kind and make that a feature of the blog as well... giving that some thought!

No comments: