Kilbroney Park, Rostrevor

Kilbroney sits in a green bowl between Slieve Martin and Carlingford Lough, and it's one of the most cinematic corners of Northern Ireland: ancient oakwood, a fjord-like sea lough, and the Cooley Mountains stacked up on the far shore. The park itself is council-run with generous free parking, big open playing fields that make relaxed launch sites, and a café for the post-flight debrief. The classic image is the Cloughmore Stone — a 50-tonne glacial erratic parked improbably at 300 m above the lough — but note the stone sits in Rostrevor Forest, which is Forest Service land where drone flying needs prior permission, so photograph it from a legal distance rather than TOALing beside it without consent. From the lower park you can still carve beautiful lines over the treetops towards the water. Two gotchas: the border runs down the middle of Carlingford Lough, so pushing past mid-channel puts your drone into Irish airspace and EU rules — stay on the NI side; and Slieve Martin generates serious lee turbulence in westerlies. Autumn is the season here, when the oakwoods turn and the low sun rakes across the lough.