2,400 miles distant
Next stop Labrador, Canada, North America in this view from the Giant’s Causeway Walk.
Click photograph for a larger view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.
The attraction has miles of footpaths, every inch with stunning views such as this.
Enormous and Personal Scale
Volcanism formed much Ireland landscape and can be credited with a huge tourist attraction near Bushmills, Northern Ireland, UK (Click me for another post of volcanic Irish landscape). The opening of the mid-Atlantic rift and movement of continents dwarfs the origin story of a roadway built by giants to connect Ireland to Scotland.
Click photograph for a larger view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.
On a prosaic scale, the granite curbs stones proved my undoing. On the walk out of the Causeway, in the falling light of dusk composing a shot, eye to the viewfinder, I fell off the curb. The camera fell, breaking the mount on both the flash and camera. To this day, I need to hold the flash in wireless mode when using the Sony.
Pride of History on display
On Causeway Road there is a turnoff an information placard for Dunseverick Castle near a cottage. This is the left side of the placard with the historical context. The right side is natural history of the area.
Click photograph for a larger view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.
Click me for the first post of this series.
Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Recollections of Saint Patrick
Slight pangs of regret recalled in my first Dunseverick Castle post are recalled this morning on remembering the long Slige Midluachra (aka “High King’s Road”) of which Dunseverick Castle was the terminus, beginning from the Hill of Tara. Walk the High King’s Road, “why not?.”
Here we can see the two partial wall, remains of a gate house, destroyed in the 17th century. I can imagine making the climb up the foot path, examine the earthworks from before the Viking invasions, middle of the first millennium A.D. Recall a visit by Saint Patrick, trodding the path from his Easter fire on the Hill of Slane.
Click photograph for a larger view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.
Explore my photography on Shutterstock for use with your blogs
Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
My latest photos accepted into Getty IStock
Click me to view the latest batch of photos accepted into Getty….these are from Torr Head..
catching the wind
Awhile after encountering the hydrofoil the same north wind powered a large, eight foot wingspan kite high overhead. Cheri Down Park, my meeting point for lunch with Pam, was in sight as I took a detour to talk with the kite flier.
Click me to open video in a new browser tab for better experience.
Seated in a comfortable beach chair, he turned a one foot diameter reel pulling the kite in. Kite flying was a relaxation for this permanent resident. As the kite descended overhead I caught this short video. In retrospect the beauty is ominous, a metaphor for the approaching novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
Click me to open video in a new browser tab for better experience.
Invasion
Morning walks through January 2020 were solitary events, more so on stormy morning such as this, January 23rd. Even the dog walkers stayed home. The surf surged to the dunes. Click me for my posting, “Rough Surf.”
Today’s photographs are a sequence of the surf’s high point. Click me for yesterday’s post including a video.
Click photograph for a larger view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.
The sun broke through between clouds to rake with light the beach scurf and wind scud. In the distance, a steady west gale blows surf onto itself as a white curtain.
Click photograph for a larger view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.
Click photograph for a larger view. You will open a gallery to flip back and for between images.
beyond belief
At dawn I walked on the beach from North 1st street to South 8th Street Cocoa Beach. Tide was at peak of high, the surf still high from gale winds. Click me for yesterday’s posting, “Rough Surf.”
In the first video, set the effect of a strong west wind pushing surf spray back onto itself, the ocean brightly lit across dunes. I was standing on a boardwalk access from South 8th Street.
Click to open in a new browser tab for better experience.
South 8th Street is my turnaround, walking back the squall clouds broke, releasing sunlight for this video.
Click to open in a new browser tab for better experience.
Squalls returned, forcing me to hide the DSLR (digital single-lens reflex camera) under my waterproof shell. Then, the squall broken once again, releasing sunlight for this double rainbow.
Click to open in a new browser tab for better experience.
A shining Star
Saint Mary’s “Star of the Sea” Church. Culraney, Cushendun, Co Antrim, BT44 0PU. Diocese of Down and Connor.
Click photograph for a larger view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.
Part of Cushendun Parish, this church on Torr Road served the people of Loughan Cottages.
See this post for a description of wildflowers flowering here in the month of June.
The rest of the Coolranny information placard. I used the information about wildlife on a previous post.
I have yet to correct the horizon of this view.
Facing Views
Standing on Torr Head the sights, every direction, overwhelmed the senses. With the camera I was able to capture views even today are coming into my understanding.
In this view south, Torcorr Townland coastal ridge runs down to the North Channel at Runabay Head. There are two bays, the nearest Portaleen Bay, between the dark, unnamed, point and Runabay Head is Loughan Bay.
Click photograph for a larger view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.
See this post for a description of the foreground wildflowers.
Tor in Irish is a steep rocky height. Likewise, Corr means odd, uneven, rounder, convex, curved, peaked, projecting, smooth. Combined, Torcorr is the townland where we stopped on the Torr Road, halted by our wonder at this sight. This photograph looks toward the vantage from which the previous photograph was taken, Torr head.
In the distance, Torr Head projects into North Channel, the closest land to Scotland. Following the coast, the unnamed point in front of Torr Head is home to numerous sea birds such as Fulmars (family Procellariidae) nad Oystercatchers (family Haematopodiadae). Along the rock beaches next Eider Ducks (genus Somateria). You might see the Common Buzzard (species Buto buteo).
The curved bay is named Loughan, above it are ruins of cottages emptied by Irish emigration.
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 