Ireland! Day Ten! The Shire!

After having seen the sea for several times we wanted to some of the green forests that were promised by the guides. We took the bus down to Strabane and from the the rambler tour bus to Gortin Glenn Forest Park, a wildlife preservation park that features several paths to have a casual walk.

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The park or forest reminded us a lot of the descriptions in all these fantasy books, especially the Lord of the Rings.

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So many wild flowers, especially purple ones. Everything smelled of fresh green herbs.

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I did not cease to annoy Doro with a detailed description of flower development based on my own poor knowledge. „Look, this thing there will become this other thing and then there it will be a flower and then this thing.“ Very impressive.

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Then the Shire changed to become more like the lands of Saruman. All of a sudden, the forest was gone and we looked on a deserted destroyed patch, void of all tree life.

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It had a really surrealistic feel to it.

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We asked a passing wanderer and he told us, that this is part of regular woodworking. Every year a new hill is harvested while the others all have trees of different age. Mostly pine wood.

We continued to climb up the hill.

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We then found a patch of young trees. Row after row of regrowing trees. They looked artificial and strange.

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The clouds were really low, so that we couldn’t see as far as it was promised in the guide.

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All a really relaxing walk in the forest. When we headed back we had to wait for the bus for an estimated hour. But after only 20 minutes the bus in the opposite direction came by and as it was empty, the bus driver just told us to hop on, he turned the thing around and he drove us back the way he came from. And he told us stories about the area for the whole ride.

 

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