Go Wild Tourism Magazine( Wild Atlantic Way)

Mark Harrison on His Highs of the WILD ATLANTIC WAY

From the wet, windy weather, to

coastal climbing, Canadian born photographer and videographer Mark Harrison found the Wild Atlantic Way to be appropriately named. Alongside fellow Australian travel social media star Jorden Tually, the travel gurus hired a car at Dublin Airport and headed straight to Achill in County Mayo to begin their eight days exploration of counties Mayo, Sligo and Donegal. With a new found love for black pudding and family ties to gin distillers in Cork, Mark plans on returning but with a greater

selection of waterproof clothing and footwear next time. “We tried to spend as much time on the coast looking at cliffs ‘cos we love that, Jordan and I, so we spent a lot of time doing that. Horn Head was a big highlight. We saw photos of Slieve League and kind of expected that and knew what we were getting ourselves into in Achill, but we randomly drove to Horn Head and that was stunning, beautiful. Like really, really, high sea cliffs, there were castles everywhere and little ruins and then the clouds came in and we got a really cool drone shot of the top of the cliff and then the clouds meeting but not going above the cliff. So it was just like this edge with clouds on one side and the edge on the other, it was really cool.” Speaking about his other highs of the trip he said: “Climbing with Ian Miller of Unique Ascent in Co. Donegal was the highlight for sure. He’s just such an adventurer at heart and you can really see it and he is a lot of fun and just let us do whatever, which was a lot of fun. And we really would not have gotten there without his guidance.” “We went to this one little beach called Port, and there was no one there and the sea was really rough, an insanely crashing ocean and I’d say that’s the one appeal that we had, even though we didn’t have beautiful weather, we

had extreme weather, which is arguably cooler ‘cos I travel for unique experiences that was an experience. On the day we were with Ian Miller, we experienced 90KM winds, he was saying, really insane winds that we could really lean in to and then with all the rainy weather we got lots of rainbows, which is always a nice silver lining.” While wave conditions prevented surfing in Sligo and the short winter days interfered with climbing Benbulben, they did soak up the atmosphere in the form of a seaweed bath in Strand Hill to which Mark felt it was “like bathing in aloe vera, with all the goo!” Continuing to talk about his best bits, he said: “There’s one place called the Secret Waterfall in Co. Donegal and we were driving along this road and saw this little coffee truck just sitting at the side of the road. We were like ‘aw sweet let’s check that out’ and they told us, just down on the shoreline when the tide is out you can walk down and out and access this waterfall but when the tide is in you can’t access it. Unfortunately, the low tides were five and five so it was dark both times. But we thought that was really cool, the little titbit that we learned just by chatting with the locals that were in the coffee shops. And it was amazing coffee!

“Besides the dinners in Lough Eske

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Castle and Harvey’s Point, which was also very fancy overlooking the lake, the highlight for food was, and the thing that stuck with me, surprisingly, was the Irish breakfast. That was really good with the hash browns and the beans, the little black pudding. I don’t usually eat breakfast, but I think I gained a solid 5-lbs (2-kilos) from being in Ireland!” Mark also found coming off a wet and wild mountain into a cosy snug in a pub with a peat burning fire was certainly a pleasant experience, with plenty to be found along the route. Asking if he would return, he exclaimed; “I would definitely come back! There’s so much to see and I feel like I just scratched the surface. We’d love to come back and spend longer than a week but a lot of locals said a week is a solid introduction to the Wild Atlantic Way. After travelling to so many places, I try not to have any expectations, so that I am always blown away and that was the same idea, I went in thinking this should be cool and it was better than that, it was awesome, it was super awesome.” Having spent most evenings drying out his shoes, he took a liking to Ian Miller’s SealSkin water proof socks, and so his advice to people travelling to the Wild Atlantic Way is to have the appropriate outdoor clothing. Follow Mark Harrison on Instagram @ markharrison4

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