It was time for anther photography road trip with my wingmen Diarmuid & Patrick, and .for this one we were about to head back up to the north of the Island, but stead of grabbing a ferry were going to stay on the land and explore the top of Ireland and all among the causeway coast.We had a number of locations in mind and had some unfinished business of our own for two of them after being beaten back by driving rain during a horrendous storm when. we had tried to fist visit many years back

This is an area that I had wanted to explore for a long time and besides it being totally mystical, ancient and full of folklore, it was also going to be an almost primarily focused seascape adventure. The idea of this excited me as it had felt like so long since I was able to dip my boots in the water and feel the flow and smell the salt water. This was going to be an amazing trip, I could both feel it in the air

Leaving Cork in the early morning I again took the short trip to Limerick to meet up with Diarmuid and join him in our trusty steed, his campervan. This form of transport has been a game changer for us this year and it has opened up so many opportunities for photography plus providing us with a base on wheels and many creature comforts, which on this trip would most definitely be needed.

The areas that we were about to explore where themselves all honey pot locations however this didn’t deter us from exploring and finding our own compositions and putting our own mark on the locations. First stop was Balintoy Harbour, a quant little harbour that in recent times has been made more famous because of its inclusion in the HBO series Game of Thrones as the Iron Islands and after the seven hour drive to get on location we start our photography road trip here. The rock formations here are fantastic to shoot, the weather can change in an instant and the scenery was a perfect start to this amazing adventure!! It features some impressive basalt rocks formed by cooling lava all along the harbour, and while here we were excited to see what we would find and if we would get the light.

Unlike my Scotland Adventure I wasn’t blessed with the foresight to wear my wets, I instead opted to wear some winter clothing, and when we saw two models heading over to the “Secret Beach” I figured that it wasn’t going to rain, much. In just a few minutes would prove to be a bad decision. what started as light rain quickly turned to torrential downpour and while I contemplated returning to the van to get suited up, it was too late, I was already soaked thru. Deciding to brave it out however was one of the best decisions I made that evening as after rain comes light and when it passed the light show began in the west and I was there ready to photograph it in all its glory. Over to my right in the far distance I could spot the models form earlier who were striking a pose on the rocks, it formed a great backdrop for me so I of course had to grab a shot with my long lens. The rock formations being made of lava were fantastic and I managed to capture a haunting image of a formation which looked like a dragons head coming out of the water, very befitting considering the Game of Thrones reference from earlier.

Returning to the van soaked thru I was still happy that I had braved it out, altho I had wondered how those two models and their photographer had faired in that downpour too and when Diarmuid also returned to the van we were off to find our overnight park up to have some steak and beers after what was a very long day and prepare for day two, the stuff of legends, the Giants Causeway, Join me for day two as it was also packed full of adventure, craic and me meet up with a certain “Mr Watkins” as well as hook u with the third musketeer Patrick “ Paddy” Murtagh who was also travelling in his camper and was joining us on the Saturday morning for the next instalment of craic & adventure.

You can watch this instalment of the adventure here or click below at the end to watch the entire causeway coast series