Torr Scenic Route stretches across the coast providing countless breathtaking views. The icy narrow roads proved tricky to navigate but our amazing driver, Uncle James, made it look easy. Thankfully, we were some of the only people to be out on those roads. As you can see in the first picture below the road to the bottom of the hill had some very tight turns. Built in the 1800s, the Torr Head lookout station monitored incoming ships’ destinations. In the war, Coast Guard used the house as a lookout.
The lookout station is at the very tip of the land on the top of the hill. Hard to see from so far away. It’s not the stone building at the bottom of the hill.
View from halfway up the hill
The hike straight up the hill to the building is strenuous with freezing temps and massive amounts of wind. Although it was warmer at Torr Head than it was at our first stop of the day, Bishop’s Road. The scenery is beautiful in the winter, but Northern Ireland in the summer with those green hill, blue sky, and amazing waters gets under your skin. Find more pictures of the area here. Not hard to see why the immigrants missed their homeland, or at least Irish Tenors made it sound like they did.
Photo credit goes to my husband. He takes awesome panoramic pics.
View from the lookout station
You can imagine after decades of being deserted, this station is in pretty bad disrepair inside. Not to mention that sheep often use it as a shelter… and a bathroom.
Anyone for Fixer Upper: N. Ireland Edition? There wouldn’t be any shiplap to work with but plenty of original stone! And the grazing sheep take care of the landscape so the house is pretty much the only thing you’d need to worry about. Small catch: there’s no driveway that takes you right up to the house. So, you would need to walk up and down the hill to the car parking lot, unless-of course-you had a dirt bike.
View from the roof of the station.