Having recently visited Giant’s Ring and Terrace Hill Garden in recent months, it was only natural that I would complete the set by visiting Minnowburn.
As I said when visiting Terrace Hill Garden, I only visited the entrance to Minnowburn, I was curious to delve in and explore it the next opportunity I got.
I decided to use my monthly week off (This is what happens when you have a backlog of Annual Leave) to do so.
My day didn’t go to plan at first.
I did check the Weather Forecast, and it said it would be raining on Wednesday morning. I woke up, looked out the window and saw that it was nice and dry. However, while I was having my breakfast, a rainstorm started.
Thankfully, I wasn’t up and out by that time.
Change of plan then, out in the car to do some shopping and errands, a brightening up in late morning meant that I was now getting primed and ready to head out after lunch.
By the time I arrived, I had a lot of daylight to work with, which made for some nice photos.
As I was walking along the path, I thought to myself that this looked familiar. Then it dawned on me that this is where I walked when exploring Giant’s Ring, which led me to Gilchrist Bridge, heading in that direction via a detour through Edenderry Nature Reserve.
Naturally, I headed back from Gilchrist Bridge. Once I got back to the Car Park, I went to explore the road that went in the other direction.
And explored it, and explored it. A quick Google search of a business I spotted revealed it was Edenderry Park. As it was getting dark and wet, I headed back to where I was parked.
That was, until there was a sudden and spectacular explosion of daylight, so I stopped to try and get as many photos of it as I could on my way back to the car. I would have preferred it if that happened when I was walking to and from Gilchrist Bridge.
I managed to accidentally plan my journey home to perfection. Just before the rush hour of people coming home from work, and just after the schools closed.
The triangle of Minnowburn, Giant’s Ring and Terrace Hill Garden are well worth a visit. If you really want to, you can take a few hours and explore it all in one go.
Nearby, I was hoping to get stuck into Belvior Forest Park when I have some time off over Christmas.
However, my bike suddenly became out of action, so I headed over the weekend after and had a walk about. I didn’t have my camera with me. The weather was dull so the photos wouldn’t have been good anyway.
I had an enjoyable walk, and had six different dogs climbing over me to get a hug. I like this place. I’ll definitely make plans to return with my camera in December.
With each of my previous extended periods of time off, I was planning on keeping an eye out of any last minute deals for a trip away somewhere.
That was never going to happen in this November time off. Binevenagh and Bray Head will have to wait until 2021.
The same applies to Arthur’s Seat with Scotland not getting much better, ruling out any possibility of sneaking away to Edinburgh. Even with the possibility of a vaccine in the early months of next year, Fringe 2021 is still up in the air.
2021 will be the first year in a long time that I will wake up on New Year’s Day with no trips booked.
What I hope to do at some point is make a return visit to Old Trafford, especially as my last visit was a defeat.
If fans are allowed in toward the end of the season, I might look at sneaking off to the game against Leicester, scheduled for a midweek in May.
If I do, I’ll try to sneak in a trip to the Peak District. There are still a lot of things that need to fall in place for that to happen.
I might even get myself into gear and head to the Mournes.
All I have for the rest of the year is the hope that there will be lots of snow in Belfast to photograph.
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