It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B.
It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way.

- Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail

The reason I wanted our base camp to be at Glenariff Forest Park was simply because of the waterfalls. I love them, and our campground boasts a waterfall walk. The waterfalls were something special, they peppered the walk - their song echoed through the air, gliding over rocks and slipping through seams between the trees. The forest was filled with song.

But that is not the most remarkable piece of Glenariff.

Green.

Let me tell you about the colour green. You think you know what green is, how it looks, the varieties of green one can encounter - the nostalgic teal in an old glass Sprite bottle, the sagacious green of an evergreen forest to the perky green of spring. Walking amoung the uncountable shades of green, I learned that my awareness of green is only a shallow knowing of green. Green is more, a feeling, a sense of space, a smell of the air, the hush before winter bows to spring and a promise to winter that green will endure. 

Green is more.