Newcastle & Tollymore Forest Park

On the northeast coast of Northern Ireland lies the picturesque town of Newcastle, which with the Tollymore Forest Park one of Northern Ireland's greatest attractions. Like Newry, Newcastle is located

in the historic County Down. Strictly speaking, only one half of it is located Newry This county. Northern Ireland once had six counties, then twelve, and even twenty-six at one point. Currently, it consists of eleven districts.

Newcastle – County Down

We're heading to Newcastle on a beautiful Saturday morning. Newcastle is about an hour away from Newry by bus, which is a good deal since it's also about 45 minutes by car.

Currently, 7,500 people live here, and we immediately noticed that fewer elementary schools are needed. Because a Lidl is located in a very historic building (the old elementary school of Newcastle), right next to the bus station.The most beautiful Lidl in the world (see gallery below). But we'll leave that one to the side and keep walking along the Slieve Donard Resort and Spa past, directly to the promenade. It's different from other promenades because you're right by the sea here, and since it's high tide right now, there's not much beach left. There are no shops or restaurants either, but it does offer a great natural feeling. The wind whips and the sea drowns out any noise from the city (if there was any).

We use the pedestrian bridge and walk across the Shimna River, which I will mention again later. Immediately afterwards, we stop at Niki's Kitchen Café and enjoy a delicious and healthy lunch. Full, we call a taxi and have ourselves driven to Tollymore Forest Park bring, which is only a five-minute drive away. But it's uphill and the kids and we just ate...you know 🙂

Tollymore Forest Park

This park is the oldest state park in the history of Northern Ireland and is among the „Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty„These are nature reserves, so to speak, and they are looked after and maintained accordingly. We get out at the Rangers Office and head onto the red trail. Blue is just a short walk, and black leads to a summit of the Mourne Mountains.

After a few minutes, we descend to the Shimna River, which runs through the forest. A total of 16 bridges cross it, not including the aforementioned pedestrian bridge outside the park. Every second bridge here is ancient and incredibly beautiful. It's breathtaking how moss has grown over stones and trees. How wonderful that it rains so much here. We continue along the route, past various Game of Thrones filming locations. But for any big fan of such series, like myself, the locations will naturally go unnoticed. However, the entire way, we are amazed by the beauty of nature here. There are stepping stones here – stones placed in the river that you can walk across in the summer. Currently, there's too much water here.

Huge playground for children

The kids can really let off steam here in the forest, because Tollymore Forest Park is like a giant playground for them. That's how it should be.
After good 4 hours!!! By the way, 1.5, we reach the Rangers Office again. We have a taxi called and walk up to the monument, across a lush green meadow. Wow, what a great feeling up here!

The taxi will take us to a great restaurant where we can end the day. In the Villa Vinci Are there delicious Italian dishes and good red wine (yummy). We were quite surprised when the owner suddenly answered in German. We hadn't heard German at all in the first two weeks here. So we'd better be careful what we talk about 😉

Afterwards, we went back to the beach and looked for the sea. The low tide here is quite strong, and we were able to take a great walk all the way to the water. The kids collected shells, and we enjoyed the peace and quiet.

Conclusion

Should you ever be on the Mourne Coastal Route When you're on the road, make sure to stop in Newcastle and don't miss the beauty of the surroundings here, especially, of course, the Tollymore Forest Park. February is an ideal travel month for Northern Ireland, as it rains often and everything is so beautifully green. I've uploaded some snapshots of our trip for you here.

Have fun!