Another Bloody Mountain

As much as I love writing and documenting about my hikes through the Mournes, I've also begun to struggle writing these posts. There is only so much blubber and word salads I can put into these paragraphs without rolling my eyes and thinking "what am I talking about?", "why am I even saying this, who cares?" or "why am I actually turning a walk into a story?". I love a good yap but I feel even I know my limits or, if I didn't before, have found them now.

So instead, I'm just going to do what I probably should have done from the start and just post some pictures with a paragraph or even just a sentence around that picture. Less fluff, less words, more of me not taking things serious, looking at pictures and hopefully saying "hmm... nice picture" even if they probably aren't.

Maybe I'll go back to the previous kinda story-driven, oversharing structure but for now to avoid me feeling compelled to post but without the motivation to write, I'll stick to this.

While heading up the Bloody Bridge route toward Slieve Donard, we saw some free-roaming horses, including a foal (!!), that gave us strong Kazakhstan mountain bareback-riding vibes.

During our hike, we ran into some difficulties because instead of watching where to go, we lost track of the trail and ended up in the boggy no-mans land which required us to follow the edge of the stream and then jump across to get back on the trail. Oh I should mention that for a change, I wasn't alone on a hike!! The first of the series and probably the last for a while.

The next stop was the old quarry which marked a natural point to stop for a snack break, listening to the falling water from the waterfall in the background. So pretty, right? (Don't answer that).

Finally we reached the Mourne wall that would take us up to the summit of Slieve Donard and one of the more steep inclines. There was plenty of opportunities to take pictures of the surrounding Mournes from this trail and definitely not excuses to stop for a moment and catch my breath.

Finally after around thirty or so minutes of trekking up the back of Donard, that at times (according to my phone) measures 33 degrees of inclination, we reached the top. My reward? A warm chicken and stuffing meal deal sandwich and a protein bar! Oh and of course the view of Newcastle (wow!).

The rest of the hike was pretty standard - the exact same but in reverse. However, we did stop off to dip our feet in the water at Bloody Bridge and then got celebratory ice creams in Newcastle, yay!