Monday, August 02, 2004

Blueberries and Sunsets

Continued along the Ulster Way yesterday - a 600 odd mile traipse around the north of Ireland. A fine evening found us up Shanes Hill Road at Ballyboley Forest. Through a bunch of spruce trees and over a stile or two to a vantage point overlooking Larne. The last time we were up here we could see as far as Scotland to the north-east, the Mournes to the south with a hint of the Isle of man on the horizon and to the west Slemish and the Sperrins and of course Lough Neagh our inland sea.
This evening though we had haze - whether pollution or innoccuous heat haze or a mixture of both I don't know.
Every month here seems to have a dominant colour. In May the yellow gorse or whin dominates. This month its the purple of the heather and the thistle. The darker bell heather mixes in with the lighter type of heather ( I can't remember the technical term!)
I picked blueberries. I never realised they were so common here. My memories of blueberries focus round Norwegian forests where on rare visits as children we coloured our hands and faces purple with the juice.
We walked over to the cairned top of Agnews Hill and decided to stop there as the sun was declining rapidly.
Walking back we watched as the sun set directly over Slemish- St Patrick's Hill. White moths fluttered around us as we made our way back to the car. Black slugs began their dusk feeding.
Today I completed the stetch of the walk with Tess, my sisters dog. I drove up the lonely and desolate Starbog Road past the quarry where a couple of years ago a local man was pulled into the crushing machine and killed.
Tess had to be lifted over the stiles but frolicked madly in the soft mossy grass. We saw frogs.
The weather was misty but warm- no spectacular sunsets this evening!