Brom becomes King of the Castle

Coocoo

Here I am again. And this time I am going to tell you all about the day we went and saw the castle. You may remember I love seeing castles and there was one quite close to where we were staying. And it was free as well!

First though we went to Newcastle. Mara and Gera tried to find as many Newcastles in the world and realised there wasn't even one in the Netherlands. There is one in Northern Ireland though, and that's where we stopped first for a reason. When Mara had packed her suitcase, she had forgotten to take some knitting with her, so she needed something to do in the evenings. Mara and Gera knew there was a nice wool shop in town, so that was where they were headed.

After browsing and eventually buying lots of yarn and a crochet needle, they made their way back to the car so we could go see the castle. They had brought lunch with them and of course they stopped on the way to eat their sandwiches. In the mean time I was hopping up and down! Come on!!!

Anybody home?

Eventually we made it to the castle in Dundrum. Well, I say castle, it was more of a ruin. There was nothing left. But we did go on a walk around it, which was quite funny. First there was a steep hill down and at the end there was a steep hill up again. I think that it would have been very hard to attack back in the olden days. 

Finally we made it to the castle ruins themselves. I could see why they had built it there, as the view was fantastic all around. Mara took me up some steep stairs so I could see for myself. You could still see where the fire place had been and the garderobe (the toilet for regular bears). 

When we had seen everything and used the toilet for ourselves (no, not that one, a proper one), we made our way back to the car and back home. But we didn't go home, we took a detour and drove through the Mourne Mountains to see a bit more.

View towards the Mourne Mountains from the castle

Mara even recognised some bits, as she had driven a coach there. I thought she had been mad and she quite agreed, but that was her job. She was glad she was a passenger in a car now though and could take photos when she wanted or when Gera was able to stop the car in a safe place anyway.

You can see the Mourne Wall in the photo as well.

She managed to find a small parking spot from where we had a really lovely view all around. We got out and took some great photos of the area. Even of the burnt trees in the next field. That happened a few years ago when it was really hot and there were a few fires in the area. 

We drove home after that. It had been a lovely day again.