Downhill, Castlerock, Mussenden Temple & Gortmore Photo Trip

As part of an irregular series of photo trips with work colleagues out and about in Northern Ireland, we decided to visit a few locations up on the north coast of the country.

Researching the trip started out innocently enough with me stating to a friend (Kellie) that we were planning on heading out in the direction of Mussenden Temple. Kellie, being someone who knows that part of the world very well came back with a whole host of suggestions that we may find worth of pointing our cameras at. Some of which we did (Gortmore), some of which we didn’t (Magilligan) – but there’s always other times to get to those locations.

It was initially meant to be a four person trip – myself, Colin O’H., Colin M. and James. In the end James was unable to make it so it ended up just being the three of us.

A very early start, 6 am, on a Sunday morning, and we were off.
First stop was Downhill Beach to catch the sun coming up around the headland that Mussenden Temple sits atop.
The tide was at it’s highest so we were unable to get as far out on the beach as we would have liked, but we still managed to get enough of the wet sandy beach in our images, which was nice.

After that we went up to the Temple to get the scenery from the opposite perspective, as well as photographing Downhill House. We discovered a little reservoir which had been dammed as well as some sort of turret building.
We then crossed over the road to an old, rundown burial ground before moving on to Castlerock beach.

From there we drove around for a little while trying to find where Gortmore was. It’s not one of the better known locations but it does provide stunning views out over the surrounding area.
After finding Gortmore we stopped off in Castlerock for some much needed nourishment then headed back to set up for the sun set.

The weather for the whole day was perfect. It’d rained for the previous two days, so we knew the air would be clear, and aside from getting a little wet early in the morning from a couple of brief showers on the beach, the rest of the day it was perfect.
A little breezy at the beaches, which made for some perfect waves and it constantly had the clouds moving, casting light and shadows across the landscape.

We haven’t yet settled on a date or location for the next photo trip, but I’m sure you’ll know about it once we’ve been.

More of my images from this trip can be found here on Flickr.

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2 Comments

  1. Nick 30/10/2010 at 22:09 #

    A really great set of photos Mark. Be proud, be very proud.

    • Mark 30/10/2010 at 22:12 #

      I think I’ve got some of my best images from this set, Nick.

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