Our Day Trip to Enniskillen

This month we ventured outside Donegal and headed off for the beautiful Enniskillen in Co Fermanagh for our monthly day trip.

The sun was shining and it was a fabulous day out with my favourite people.

Our first stop was the stunning Castle Archdale Country Park which is situated on the shores of Lough Erne. This really is a fantastic place and if we had known what exactly was contained within the park beforehand we could have spent the whole day here.

But that's the beauty of our days out we just drive and see were we end up, we can always come back to somewhere we really like.

There are woodland walks and trails, boats for hire, bicycles for hire, picnic areas and our Little Fella enjoyed the ducks. We have planned to go back very soon and stay at the camping site because I know we will just have the best fun. 

In the main courtyard there are lots of exhibitions and one of Mr P's favourite things was the WW2 exhibition highlighting the role of Castle Archdale as the most westerly flying boat station.

For families this is just the greatest place and I can't wait to come back. 

You can see about Castle Archdale Country Park here.

Next stop was onto Enniskillen Castle which is right at the edge of the town. The castle is situated on the river Erne and the location is simply stunning.

We really enjoyed the exhibitions here and the military display is one of the best I've seen. There is also a very interesting display of artifacts that were found in a nearby Crannog in Drumclay.

A Crannog is an ancient artificial island built on a lake or river and in Drumclay carbon dating has confirmed that some of the site goes as far back as 670AD.

I've always loved history and for me this was my favourite find of the day.


There were decorative pins, combs made from bone, bowls, knives and it's amazing that all of these things have survived down through the years.

What a great way to spend our Saturday together creating lots of lovely memories.

I wouldn't have it any other way. 

 href="http://www.coombemill.com/blog/category/Country-Kids.aspx" target="_blank" title="Country Kids from Coombe Mill Farm Holidays Cornwall"><img src="http://www.coombemill.com/images/blog/country_Kids/thumbs/th_Country_Kids_badge_transparent.png" border="0" alt="Country Kids from Coombe Mill Family Farm Holidays Cornwall" title="Country Kids from Coombe Mill Family Farm Holidays Cornwall" />

 

The Garden Show

This past weekend was so busy in our house it went past in a blur.

Our Teen headed off on Saturday morning to a youth festival in Co Longford which was great 'craic' altogether. I'm still catching up on all the gossip from that.

Our Inbetweener was busy playing gaelic and hurling on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and I was helping out at the Relay for Life event on Saturday and Sunday.

We did manage to squeeze in some time together on Saturday morning minus our Teen when we went to the Northwest Garden Show which is held in Castlefinn not far from where we live.

It was a lovely morning spent wandering around the show gardens, farmers market, exhibitors stalls and craft stalls.

It's encouraging to see a local event like this being so well supported by the local community and it's great to find exhibitors of lovely crafts and food producers that you wouldn't otherwise have known about.

There was so much to take in but here are some of my favourite photos, especially the one of our Inbetweener who has a Golden Eagle planted on head.

It was amazing to get up close and personal with such a beautiful creature.

These are some photos of The White House Garden which was created by a number of Irish Gardeners including Diarmuid Gavin.

Even though the garden is not fully completed you can see that it will be stunning and great asset to have here in Donegal once it's fully completed.

The traditional stone walled garden is a symbol of our heritage and the close links held with America down through the years.

All in all we had a busy but great weekend.

Hope yours was just as good xx

  

Day Trip to Sliabh Liag, Glencolmcille & Ardara

Once again on Saturday morning we headed off on our monthly trip around our beautiful countryside. The weather was atrocious but it didn't put us off.

The whole day was wonderful. 

Despite getting soaked through to our skin and our hair was completely standing on us on the way home it reminded me that there is so much joy in happy and fun times spent with family and life is good.

I really hope that our children will look back with fond memories of our days spent driving along the countryside, singing whatever songs came on the radio, laughing, exploring our surroundings.

Our first stop was the breathtaking cliffs of Slieve League (Sliabh Liag in Irish). The cliffs here are twice as high as the Cliffs of Moher in Co Clare. Sliabh Liag is a must visit for lovers of nature and the great outdoors if you are ever in Donegal.

This is a place of unbelievable natural beauty and the restless Atlantic ocean can be heard crashing against the cliffs below.

Clean, crisp air, nature in it's rawest form.

Down the winding road again we headed for Glencolmcille and the Folk Village Museum.

The Museum was founded by Fr James McDyer in an attempt to generate tourism to a remote and rural part of the country and is hugely successful bringing in over 30,000 visitors per year.

It was impressive to have a look through the visitor book and see people from all over the world who had been in the past few weeks and really appreciated what they had found. 

The Folk Museum is a fantastic cluster of cottages depicting lives of the local people over a period of three hundred years. I've always loved history and I think it's important to teach our children and remember ourselves the hardships encountered by our ancestors.

By this stage we had worked up a hunger so we had another short drive to Ardara for a spot of lunch at the Nesbitt Arms Hotel taking in the beautiful scenery along the way through Glengesh Pass.

The Nesbitt Arms is an excellent family run hotel and child friendly which is a very important factor to us with the Little Fella. 

We had a lovely relaxed lunch and dessert all served up by a very attentive staff.

There we decided to seek out the Assarancagh Waterfall. None of us had ever heard of it before but we saw a photo in the Folk Village and when the waitress said it was a must see we thought we would look it up.

We set off outside Ardara and down a narrow winding road towards Maghera beach. 

The only word that comes into my head when we came around the corner and saw the waterfall was 'Wow'.

Because of the rainfall the water was thundering down the mountain at ferocious speed. It was amazing and a great way to round off our day.

With places like this on your doorstep I'm so glad we ventured out in the wind and rain. It really isn't a bad way to spend a Saturday and revive yourself after a long week. 

Hope your weekend was great xxx

  

Silent Sunday

Visiting the Animals...

I took the Little Fella for a walk outside my parents house on Friday afternoon.

We didn't go far just down the road a bit, I carried him in my arms so being quite heavy and very wriggly some of these photos might appear to be a bit shaky.

My parents live in the countryside, it's where me and my sister grew up.

Many days were spent outside roaming through the fields, climbing trees and playing make believe - looking back it was truly magical.

To me the sound of birds chirping, tractors plodding along, or animals grazing in the fields is comforting.

The air is always crisp and clean.

These are some pictures of the little friends we met along the way.

I love how our Little Fella appeared totally enchanted by animals.

Life is good.