The Tropical Ravine

Yesterday was a good day - can I get a "Hallelujah"? PLEASE read to the end - there is exciting news!

We took it easy, went to do our Saturday morning messages and have a coffee whilst we planned something fun for the afternoon. The sun was shining and there was absolutely no rain on the forecast so we decided to finally go and visit the refurbished Tropical Ravine up in Belfast's Botanic Gardens. For anyone who has lived, worked or studied near Belfast the Botanic Gardens are a place of joy and we are no different.

I remember the last time I was in the Ravine and it was awesome, in a run down, rusty and mouldy way. A place that had a certain smell, that of rotting plant life and stagnant water but good gracious was it beautiful at the same time.

This Victorian beauty was originally opened in 1889 as a Temperate House and extended only a couple of years later to create a additional Tropical section. After that is wasn't touched, but for a new roof in the 1980's. So it was a brilliant surprise when it closed in November 2015 for a full £3.8 million renovation.  It finally re-opened on the 12th April this year (2018) and all I can say is "wow!"

Here are a few photographs, oh and we entered at the new bottom entrance - leading straight into the Tropical section....

It was displayed on the wooden framed thermometer here that the temperature was 36.3 degrees but the humidity was an overwhelming 53%. There aren't many photos from this section as I was melting, literally melting into a puddle....

The misting mechanism over the tropical plants and the gorgeous new roof and windows. 

It even looks too humid to be survivable, ahaha 

The designers kept the old rusty railings and simply painted them and added a new wooden top.

I was more in my element when it came to the Temperature part of the Ravine, I could have stayed there quite some time, soaking up all the calming greens and the playful textures and explosions of colour here and there. There is also the original waterfall in this part and the sound is lovely. Sadly there were 'other people' (always a bother when you want to have quiet meditation and maybe a snooze) so I was a little on edge and stuck to simply wandering around and getting my photos :)

An explosion of green

Banana leaves are incredible, I adore the way they reflect the light

The tricking waterfall

Oh how I do love a fern or 6 

The extremely rare and delicate Killarney Fern

Clockwise from top left - the 'Makaya bella', the 'Nerium oleander' in bud and flower, 'Hibicus' in both in pink and white, 'Senna floribuna' from a distance.

The same banana plant as before but from this side we could see it was in fruit 

Just one more green photo before I go.

*****

I would like to share that this is also going to be the 1st blog post on my revamped ecotherapy blog! "What?" you say

"Yes, 10 years on the same blog has left me wanting a new adventure, so I will keep 'Grow Our Own' as an archive and move to my new address at 'A Stubborn Optimist'. Exciting times!

I do hope you will join me there. And tell your friends too" 😊

Love, Carrie xxx

*****

Actions and Consequences

At what point does challenging yourself turn into a destructive act?

It's been a while since I could even venture near this blog; a good while since I could write or even think a sentence of coherent words that might try to explain what's been happening with me. For some weeks now I have been a wreck, physically and sadly, mentally too. I have done a few good long weekend walks (in the freezing cold) but the effort has l taken it's toll and my week days have been a muddle of sleep and trying to stay sane.

Without giving my private issues air, things are really not good and I have had to visit my GP, my mental health team and get blood tests done. New medications have been added to my regimen and I could basically open a chemists shop!

Don't get me wrong - the walks have been good, I have managed them well and visited some beautiful places off the beaten track that have been glorious. However, with the Hadrian's Wall Challenge coming up we have decided to augment our route and make it a more rounded experience - less of the boring bits of the trail (by the highways etc) and more lingering in beautiful historic villages and the many museums along the way.

************

To keep you up to date here are the practise walks we have been doing every weekend. They've all been between 10 - 12 miles and in very sort of weather, bar warm and pleasant, haha.

1. The extended version of the Dungonnell Way which we did in -2 degrees with a wind chill of - 8 = is wasn't very pleasant! I took one photo, just one.

2. Section 2 of the Moyle Way which is in the middle of nowhere; we couldn't even hire a taxi to take us up there. Pure BOG = one very mucky pup!

3. The much more civilised North Down Coastal Path with toilets and cafes and towns. An easy walk but hard on the feet.

And 4. A section of the Causeway Coastal Path from Ballintoy to the Giant's Causeway which included some bouldering action that was fun.

In all cases I would recommend my Hubby's Instagram account to be fair, he was much more into the 'memory capturing' than I was - https://www.instagram.com/andrewgault_/

Lots of Love
Carrie x

Queen of the Glens (Hiking the Ulster Way)

The weather gods offered us a nice hiatus from the recent dreariness on Saturday and we grabbed it with both hands (and paws, Toby was there too). It was too good a day not to hike and boy we crushed those miles like crackers under our feet. The sky was blue, there were but wisps of cloud, and it was the perfect temperature to walk hard but not get sweaty.

It's about time we started to get serious about longer stretches again; something big is coming up at the end of April and we need to be ready.

Time to cross off some more of the Ulster Way and see an area we thought we knew but didn't. Driving through somewhere is nowhere near the same as walking it and seeing its beauty up close, it's hidden friendly inhabitants and beautiful sense of place. For a start off we were walking from the sea (away from the crazy ducks and geese of the beach car park) and up into the sky in what has been declared as 'The Queen of the Glens' -  Glenariff.

Waterfoot to Glenarrif Forest Park and back again by way of the lovely Laragh Lodge for a wee pint = 9.5 miles. The terrain being river bank mucky grass path, lots of quiet road and then pine needles under foot (and the reverse). I got to try out my new backpack which is fabulous and fits me perfectly and we both had managed to get great wee breathable windproof jackets in the sales - awesome!

Really this post is just a great way to show how gorgeous our wee country is...

The start of the walk, behind a housing development

sheep and the right hand side of the Glen

How's this for a living room window view :)

Entering the Forest Park area and the view back (left side of Glen)

lunch break and the view down to the sea

returning from whence we came

idyllic Irish scene and back to the river walk

So there we are - a walk in photos and I know there are a lot here but I have parred back as much as I can. It was a great hike 😊 and I was still able to breathe at the end though I could barely see (shakes fist at double vision!)

Here are the stats but please note they are skewed as we didn't turn the app off over lunch or our cheeky pint.

Love and hugs
Carrie x

To discover more about this stunning area click here - - The 9 Glens of Antrim

Slieve Guillion Forest Park (first visit)

As I sit here typing these very words I can feel Toby glaring at me from his bed; he's just had a bath. We went for a wee hike on Sunday and, well, he does love to pick the muckiest routes = he needed a bath. Ooh, he just looked away from me there and growled quietly, haha.

Andrew and I were caught deep in clinomania on Sunday and though we had meant to get up with the larks and go to Co. Armagh, but we, er, didn't. Such a cosy bed, such heavy eyelids....time passed swiftly and then, boom, it was 10am. Our gear all ready downstairs and our clothes laid out we shoved some breakfast down and out we went.

Only an hour or so away we came to our destination of Slieve Gullion Forest Park. The massive car park was full bar one space for us and on site there was a nice cafe = coffee! We decided that as the park closed at 5pm we couldn't do our desired hike but we could walk up to the mountain and check the terrain for the next time. I had my new camera so we took it easy and Andrew was very patient whilst I grabbed my shots and tried to get comfortable with its settings.

(Sorry, no photos of the fairy village or the giant's liar as it's bloomin' hard to get a shot when there are so many crazy excited kids around! The link above has great pics of that put of the park.)

Remember: click photos to enlarge 😊

Gorgeously clear and freezing cold little spring/ Andrew and Toby being careful with all the cars around /Cut down tree with moss and ivy

Tiny but bright lichen/  Rust and old wood with moss = joy/ Cute mass of pine cones

The view south over County Louth and Dundalk Bay in the distance /  Lonely pine cone

*****

Above was written on Wednesday - it is now Friday morning so I reckon it's time to finish this, and put some photos in, hahaha.

Plus I have a date with Toby again as he needs a hair cut today, he has no idea at present and he is already in a bad mood with all the cars and my David Bowie music stopping him from snoozing. Lucky I have treats and cuddles to offer.

Hugs and love, have a great weekend!
Carrie xx

Beach treasure and hallucinations

It wasn't a 'good' mental health day but Andrew managed to get myself and Toby out the door for a mini adventure on Saturday and in the end I was glad :) We went for a drive along the famous Causeway Coastal Route, I really wanted Toby to experience Maggie's favourite beach in Cushendun. Plus we just love the drive, any wonder it's TripAdvisor's highlight for 2018.

On the way we stopped off at Glenarm Castle tearooms. It was the first time I'd been since the extension and the addition of other small businesses. It's a beautiful place to celebrate my leaving the house and I had cake for lunch 🙂. Our food was delicious and we even had a second coffee each (personally I needed it to keep me going, boy I have been constantly exhausted these past weeks).

I picked the cafe table and instantly got out my new wee camera to have a play around. With views of the kitchen garden right next to me, how could I not? What an idyllic scene and what a lot of gorgeous mulch they had! Tractors were needed - so jealous. I wished we could go out and really have a good poke around but it's not open until St. Patrick's day.

Onwards to Cushendun and the lovely beach there. I think this is one of my all time favourite wee villages and I love it's beach; we see so many lovely people, friendly dogs and even horses on it. The village also has a resident goat that is usually tied up by the bridge beside a monument erected to all the poor animals that had to be put down due to the foot and mouth disease in 2002. Plus it has a wonderful very old pub - Mary McBrides.

Toby loved the beach, just as I hoped and it was beautifully clean as always, besides the seaweed from the recent big weather. He ran about all over the place and was a very good boy, until the very end when we were walking back to the car, at this point he ran up to a lady and bashed into her leg head first. He is a little crazy sometimes, hahaha.

We did find some little pieces of sea-glass that we see as treasure, it's always been a fun pursuit. Andrew also found a mysterious plastic animal...a giraffe or maybe a seahorse. We took it home anyway.

On the way home we had chips in the car, all of us - Toby loves a good chip.

As for the hallucinations, well how about these during this week.... Sheep in the street and grazing on the neighbours grass and this, a bumblebee in the back garden! A bumblebee in January and he had pollen on his legs which I can only assume came from the little box hedge flowers.

We are determined to at least look at the allotment in the flesh this weekend, no matter the weather!

My love and hugs
Carrie

Hiking the Dungonnell Way

Cargan, a little village in the back of beyond. A school, a garage, a pizza/chippy takeout and a petrol station with a Mace food market attached. This, and some houses, old and new builds is what you'll find. Oh, and there is a much valued toilet in that Mace/petrol station - it's important to know these sort of things!

1.50 pm
We parked our car at the side of the road, half up on the footpath, by the new builds. Got our backpacks out and without any formalities, we started walking on the Dungonnell Way. Well, there was the obligatory selfie 💑.

The first official sign we came to was broken, laying in the long grass, just a wooden post. We lifted it, saw the arrows pointing the way and propped it up for the next people who may pass this way. Then we walked, up out of the village, past the farmsteads and to the hills where the sheep are kings and the roads barely used, save for the water board checking the most lovely little dam and the few fishermen who while away the afternoon there.

2.50 pm 
This countryside was beautiful with many birds singing, rabbits (one very dead), crickets (if you listened hard enough), butterflies and the hugest dragonflies I have ever seen. I guess I always thought dragonflies were the same as damselflies but no, these guys are on steroids and don't think twice about dive-bombing your head, haha. With such peace as this, walking through here it felt like each worry, each stress melted away with every footstep; my breathing became deeper (the air smelt so good) and my steady gravely sounding plod was music to my ears. All round was green, many shades and textures, this is where I was meant to be. I think it's where we all need to spend time.

Before we saw the forest, we smelt it, delicious sweet pine in the air. It's a place I thought I knew but as usual, I was so wrong, we have only ever seen the smallest part and stuck to the little different coloured sign posts. This was the back entrance, the tradesman's entrance, slightly rougher and far more interesting.

3.10 pm
Under the tree canopies here there is a whole world of moss, I love moss, I mean I LOVE MOSS. Don't question it, deal with it, I love moss, every kind, oh and mushrooms again every kind out in the wild. I couldn't eat one unless you paid me a ridiculous amount but I am compelled to study them and photograph them. Moss and fungi = happiness.  It was in here we saw peat dams and dragonflies, cleggs (one b*stard got me 3 times on the leg) and blue damson flies, being super loved up!

3.52 pm
The time flew by and then it was lunch. We stopped at a gate into the back of this much loved forest and set up our Trangia, using the stile as a seat. Fruity porridge was the dish of the day and it was SO good. Here was a damn good seat, any seat is good when you've walking 5 miles with a backpack though :)  We met a friendly Mountain biker, had a chat and then he climbed over our stile bike on his shoulder and shot off, he was super impressed that we had come so far on foot and were only half way. As we were leaving runners swooshed by, arggh, they make me feel so unfit but then they have no backpack and we later saw where they had parked, half a mile away at the most.

We crossed the road and into a deforested area were we came across a urea storage unit; we aren't farmers but we know what urea is, and this, well this didn't make sense, why store it? Past that there was an incredible machine for cutting and limb stripping trees into logs - the accident book that the foreman must have would have some horrific injures I should imagine; I didn't really like being so close to it, even though it was off! Then around a corner and boom - a hill, a long one, but one step at a time and the view from the top was awesome (in the proper sense of the word). 

 A wee dander on and we were at another road side and a huge (for hikers) intersect of the International Appalachian Trial, Dungonnell Way and Ulster way. Plus there was a Pony trail here too and dog walkers with the happiest dogs ever - which made me miss Maggie but there was truly no way she could have walked this far, never mind that which was to come.

I took the lead walking along a busy, very curvy road (scary times) to get to next part of our walk, there's a handle on the back on my rucksack so Andrew could have used it to save me but using my noggin' I was OK. This was one of the most beautiful parts of the walk, I can't even begin to explain the emotion that this pathway through more trees, covered in moss and dappled light brought up. It felt like home in a spiritual sense, it was ophric and I realised that we as a people are so removed from this real nature that we don't even have words to express it, to describe it; it's gone from our vocabulary.

Suddenly there was an elderly man with his tiny but feisty little dogs, he did the country thing were you nod your head, lift a hand and mumble something like "great day isn't it". I love that, being out of society, sweaty, dirty and others like you don't care, they're just happy to see you, no matter your clothes, make-up, hair. You don't have to be anything but your authentic self.

The sunlight was falling down here in little beams where there gaps in the tree tops; how beautiful to see a fern or a new pine glow where that beam touched the ground. I could live in places like this revelling in the sense of wabi-sabi I spoke of before.

Then we hit the most quiet road in Ulster, Skerry East. Well contradictorily it was busy today, with many very disgruntled teenagers seemingly doing the Duke of Edinburgh with 70 litre back packs on and compasses swinging from their hangdog little necks. They were in misery and there we were laughing and smiling, two 'old people', crazy for actually liking this hiking lark; it made me smile harder.

Off to the left of this incredibly beautiful area we saw what we thought was a mine shaft wheel (the area was once mined for iron ore). So we took a detour and found this brought to us by those people at The Woodland Trust, a new little forest and this stunning sculpture.

The rest of the way went by so quickly and before we knew it, there we where back in Cargan, our car still there (thank goodness) awaiting us. It was 6.45pm, time to get these backpacks off and go in search of dinner!

*Speaking of which, my backpack was on it first ever outing, it's a turquoise 'Montane Women's Habu 22' and it's incredible* (This is my personal opinion, I'm not affiliated with any hiking company)

Hugs and Love
Carrie