N.I. APRIL/MAY A short stroll down to Torr Head - and back up.

 Monday 1st May

A pretty good night’s sleep after our fairly strenuous walk yesterday. In spite of being close to a (minor) road, there was little traffic and splendid views.  There are clouds and sunshine in my view this morning.

We breakfasted on cereal, then had coffee from the tiny cafetière, sitting outside on the sun-trap wind-sheltered bench.

A pre-lunch walk of three miles down to Torr Head,

where we climbed up to the one-time coastguard station.

 Then the steep climb back up to the cabin(61 floors worth of climbing, so my app tells me). Could feel it a bit from yesterday. 

We lunched on scrambled egg on toast, courtesy of hosts. 

Weather dry, and mostly clear. Afternoon sunshine.

The moon shining daylight pale over the sea

as the horses are brought home from the ploughing contest.

N.I. APRIL Glenarrif

Wednesday 26th April 223

Today looks pretty grey. All-trails routes as always look handy. 

I had a short stroll along the paths down to the beach and back - just under a mile. 

After coffee, at around 1pm , we headed out to Glenarrif Forest Park, where we exchanged a fiver for five coins for two young French women from Lyon, then had a tuna sandwich and coffee before deciding to do the ‘Scenic Trail’.

We made a slight deviation on to the road after we crossed the forbidden barriers.  It would have helped if the signs had been more informative, especially since I had no decent map reception in the valley.  Anyway, after clambering over and under trees, we joined the road, and walked a fair way along, before turning right to the pub near the Ess-na-Crub waterfall, then followed the trail again.

Missed out on Ess-na-Larach.   A good 7 miles, with around 800 feet of climbing. Elevation profile interesting. 

The weather stayed dry, views were good if not spectacular. Alisa Craig was clear in sunlight on the way back.

N.I. APRIL One from April - Cushenden, Northern Ireland

Sunday 23rd April.

We spent the morning relaxing, then drawing the view. Sitting in the sun trap spot with coffee was good.

After coffee we decided to walk into Cushenden and do the Ring Walk - poorly worked out leaflet. It was difficult to find some of the places, and there was some dodgy road walking between Cushenden and Clady. on the A92.

Somewhere close to 7 miles in all.

We stopped for a lunch of soup and sweet ‘wheaten bread’ at the place opposite Mary McBride’s pub. 

Then we decided to complete the walk. A glance at the caves first - a coachload of youngsters from Czechia were there - I wonder if that was a brexit bonus for Ireland.