Random prettieness. Meaning, I still have pictures and just ran out of creative ways to organize them.

Ruins in Glendalough

Waterfall in Wicklow

Some random forest. Do I need a reason to have a pretty picture of sun lit trees?

Sally Gap in Wicklow

Strange bumps...

and pretty flowers

One tree or many? Killarney National Park.

Town of Dingle as seen from Connor's pass.

The ocean on the Slea Head drive in the Dingle Peninsula.

Hardy plants that have avoided being blow off the rocks. Dingle Peninsula.

Pretty ocean

I like dripping rock walls, and the plants that grown on them. Dingle Peninsula.

The Sleeping Giant. Dingle Peninsula.

Yes, I do like flowers.

Water

I suppose that along with flowers and mountains and rain, I am also partial to waterfalls.

Just keep climbing

On the way over Sally Gap in the Wicklow Mountains, we saw a bunch of cars parked by the side of the road next to a trail. So we got out and decided to climb the mountain. (strangely enough, one of the cars was a taxi, I have no idea what a taxi was doing in the middle of the mountains.)

We climbed to the top and found a bog. A bog on top of a mountain.

Then we climbed back down again. We never saw any other people even though there were at least four cars. We think there was the possibility of a bog monster.

We drove on and in the parking lot of the Gelndalough visitor's center we looked up at the mountainside. Picked the highest place we could see and joked that we weren't going to climb up to there. (observe the scattering of trees on the high hillside)

So we explored the ruins of the monk's habitations . . .

and stayed on the civilized paths down in the valley. (observe the high up trees again)

We walked on a paved trail and took pictures of the lake.

But somehow we were lured away from the lake shore. We ended up climbing again. We couldn't help it when the mystical forest path presented itself (click link to see pictures). We saw deer. We climbed above the lake and took more pictures.

And do those trees look familiar? We didn't climb to the spot we had joked about, but we climbed just as high and possibly a bit further.

Where we said we wouldn't climb.

Where we ended up.

What can I say? Hiking up mountains is just so much fun.

Torc waterfall and the surrounding mountains

We escaped from the manicured gardens of Muckross house and went seeking Torc waterfall.

We walked through open fields and then into a forest.

crossed under a bridge

and the stream came into view

it was a quite lovely waterfall as well. Even if it was a bit crowded (observe the corner of somebody's blue umbrella on the left).

But almost everybody turned around at the waterfall and went back, not bothering to go up these really beautiful steps.

We climbed the steps and ended up above the waterfall in a sort of cleft between two mountains.

There was a marked loop, but there was also a different trail through a wildlife preserve. We left the loop and headed off into a mossy forest.

It was pretty. The stream ran right next to the path and everything (including us) was covered in a light rain.

Then suddenly the trees just stopped. It was as if they couldn't cross some invisible line. We left the forest and walked out onto the open mountainside.

It was still raining. But it matched the scenery.

The trail went on forever. We hiked over a few hills of the mountain and still the line of the path went on and on into the distance. We could see it on the mountainside far in front of us.

Eventually we turned back. Muckross closes it's gates at 7:00 and charges a 37euro fee if you want to get your car out after they've closed.

Too bad. I would've liked to see where the endless path led.