There’s a handy little carpark at Hag’s Leap and from there leads a path that takes you towards Eagle’s Rock, but after walking along it only a short while I knew that I wasn’t going to get the vantage point that I was looking for. For that I’d need to do a little trespassing, as is usually the case. Eager to get to where I figured I needed to be I skipped over a stream, climbed the opposite bank and gingerly swung my legs over a few barbed wire fences (all made a tad more precarious with all my camera gear on my back).

As I stood behind my tripod waiting for the sun to rise I became aware of a huge mass of fog moving towards me and completely obliterating my view to the north. Which meant it was also either going to cloud my view of Hag’s Leap or if I got lucky then it was going to move into the foreground and provide for an interesting image.

In the event the fog kind of looped around me. It was surrounding me, but clear where I stood. The fog would alternate between obscuring my view of Hag’s Leap, opening up completely, or making playful shapes against the rock. Also when the fog opened up the rising sun was pointed directly at me. This meant that the sun was catching the scene at a slant, and what with having to hold my hand at an angle to the lens as a sort of light baffle, getting an even exposure was proving difficult. I was convinced that I was underexposing but in the event I was overexposing. I could’ve coverd myself by braketing my exposures but it didn’t occur to me at the time. It will occur to me next time though. That’s one of the great things about photography – you’re constantly learning.

When the light eventually went flat I made my way back to the car. Crossing the stream took a lot longer on the way back. While it was no raging torrent I was approaching it from the steeper bank this time and once stood in the water one wrong step with the weight I was carrying would mean falling in.

I made it through though, with dry trousers. After which I drove along a road which rose high over a mountain pass before descending toward Lough Melvin. At the higher point I was able to see a bank of fog sitting on the horizon, and poking out the top of it were the tips of electricity generating windmills. It looked as if these blades were floating in a sea of clouds and it was pretty striking. It was something only to be experienced though as the effect was lost through the lens of my camera.

I then made my way to Aroo Trail and proceeded along it, for no other reason than I wanted to see what was at the end of it. The trail doesn’t go as far as the lough from which it gets its name, but there’s nothing to stop you continuing other than a sign, so I continued. The huge bog further on did force me to turn around though, without so much as a glimpse of the lough. However, on my descent it was pleasing to note that from where I stood I was able to see 3 counties at the same time (Sligo to the south, Leitrim before me, and Donegal to the north).

When I got back to the car I only had a few hours until sunset so decided to head to Rosses Point in Sligo to take a look at a lighthouse on Oyster Island. Once again the light was slanting across the scene due to the angle of the sun, but from the opposite direction now.