The Trees Campervan Trips: Northern Ireland Tour Week 2. Sept 10th

Weds 10th Sept
Before we left Drum Manor Forest Park campsite , we took Millie for a wee walk in the Park and ….

Hurrah!

Today we are exploring the Sperrin Mountains.
When the Lord Deputy of Ireland invited reps of the London guilds to visit in Ulster in 1609 hoping to persuade English settlers to come to the region, he instructed their guides to keep them well away from the Sperrin Mountains- “when it rains they can be dismal” he said. And today it is actually dismal with rain and mist hiding the hills.
We headed off to see the Beaghmore Stone Circles - having seen stone circles in the Orkney’s and the Hebrides we weren’t expecting much but Wow! We were blown away by these prehistoric circles! A collection of 7 circles and many burial cairns over an extensive area ,
Here is a diagram of the site

Expert opinion is divided as to their purpose . Some think their orientation line up with the summer and winter solstices. Recently some astronomers have speculated the layouts may in fact be a representation of comets!
It’s very difficult to show the extent of the area in photo’s - but we’ll try…
This is circle A.

A few more photos.

Can you see our van in the distance below? The only vehicle in the car park. If this was in the south of England there would be a several coaches lined up and a hundred cars.

Standing on a stone (on the perimeter, not a sacred, important stone, obv) to take a photo, Graham found a tupperware container so obviously fished it out. I hope no secrets are being given away here but it was a geocache thingy. It contained not treasure, but a balloon, a clip, orange sponge thing, 2 golf (could be Ikea) pencils and some rotted paper. So if you are in the game I put it carefully back for you to find.

On to The OM Dark Sky Centre as Graham has booked a tour. It’s behind a public access forest park in which was situated, to Carol’s delight, one of the three giant sculptures (for which she was prepared for me to drive 40 minutes to see, so I was delighted too). This is Ceoldán, the Stargazer.

So Graham went to the loo (in the centre) to suss them out and came back thinking it was a Mickey Mouse operation. But we’re here now so here we are.

The tour was actually good. My guide was Clara and she knew her stuff. Clara gave an easy to follow explanation of our solar system and even beyond, what we can see, how to identify it. The relationship between Beaghmore Stones (above) and the stars was explored but actually no-one has a clue. There was a great interactive model of our relationship between the Earth and our Moon showing the different Moon phases and distances from the Earth which I could have played with all day. A concession ticket only cost me £3.10, less than the coffee! By the way, the centre is named OM because that’s the sound the universe makes. Ommmm.

The highlight was the telescope they have there. A powerful 14 inch LX600 Meade telescope, capable of zooming in on stars a very long way away, and tracking them. You didn’t look through it, but it projected onto a computer screen. It was red and very impressive.

We then made our way back to Cookstown and down through Armagh, Newry to the Mountains of Mourne. Lord the roads down there are shocking.

Fri 11th Sept

We’re staying in Annalong, at the foot of the Mourne Mountains. To be honest, we didn’t want to stay in Annalong but we forgot it was the weekend and Rostrevor was booked up - these campsites are empty in the week and then over the weekend you can’t get into the nice ones. We forgot and didn’t book early enough. The site is in a lovely position and we have a seaview front row pitch so can’t complain.

Anyway, Annalong is nice, but the Harbour Inn which promised fine seafood overlooking the pretty harbour was shut. Bizarre. The tables were set with wine glasses, cutlery and tablecloths but the entrance was boarded up.

The other attraction, the Old Cornmill was also shut, although it was supposed to be open 2pm to 5pm except on Tuesdays according to the leaflet..

There was a sweet little harbour with a small fleet of working fishing boats of which we saw a couple coming in and out with their catches … hoping they may supply the local fish and chips restaurant opposite the site ,as we’re falling back on that for supper tonight after the Harbour Inn disappointment.