Walking On The Flaggy Shore

Yesterday the sun was shining and there was no storm blowing. We haven't had a day this good for a while so we decided to get out for a walk while we had the chance. As always we brought Sheba, our German Shepherd, and for the first time we brought little Eppie, our five month old puppy who hasn't walked this far with us before.

We headed for the Flaggy Shore. The Flaggy Shore is in northern Clare and is one of nine sites of geological importance recognised by Unesco. It is one of our favourite places to walk because of its beautiful views and shore line. It is also very close to where we live and I consider it part of my fictitious Ballyyahoo area.

We were shocked when we arrived to find the road we normally drive along to park our car had been washed away by the storm. All that remained were the stones. Most of the rocks and boulders are grey limestone but there is also some granite and sandstone. 

In fact the landscape is very different from our last walk. Not just the roads gone but whole fields have become lakes. This below was a grazing field. It is now a lake edged by tons of seaweed. 

This used to be a road that turned into another grazing field but this is all that remains. 

Again you can see the remain of the road in the photograph below. The surface has been washed away and the surrounding fields look like part of a bay - they weren't before!

Sheba loves swimming and she quickly got herself in the freezing salt water to enjoy herself in what used to be a field.

 As we walked on we found a large length of the road still okay but as we went further we found the road had disappeared into the water. The area to the left used to be a field!

This is a closer view of the water. You can see the long grass just floating below the surface.

We couldn't walk through this river/road so we decided to climb this stone wall and cross the field to avoid it. Eppie wasn't sure whether she wanted to go over the wall but in the end she went for it.

We all made it over the wall and after the crossing the boggy field we had another wall to climb.

The Flaggy shore walk is great as an easy walk - you don't have to back track because it loops around to take you back to where you started and there are no shortage of beautiful sights as you go along.  

This horse was quite tame and happily trotted up to the wall to be closer. 

Despite the damage, the walk along the Flaggy shore is still very enjoyable and beautiful but I can't help thinking about those whose land and property has been damaged by the recent storms and floods and hope that they can recover from this. 

If You Went Down To The Woods Today

BALLYYAHOO WOODS

The woods I describe in my Ballyyahoo books are inspired by different woodlands. Many of them are in Wicklow where I lived most of my life, one in Wexford and several in Galway.

We went to Kilcolgan woods today. We are regular visitors to this woods as it is not too far away from our home. We have had such stormy weather lately we weren't sure what we would find but we were very pleasantly surprised. The dark relentless rain of the morning gave way to scattered showers by mid-morning. As we began walking, the sun trickled through the treetops and dropped a dappled chain of light throughout the trails.

The rain seems to have given rise to a lush growth of ivy, ferns and moss everywhere we looked. This tree below had fallen, yet it appeared to have given birth to two baby trees that were growing vertically despite their position on the sunny diagonal of the trunk.

BIRTH OF A TREE

ON THE FOREST BED

These two pictures show different portions of a rather graceful looking piece of trunk. This rested on the forest bed as though gently placed there by nature herself while she decided how best to depict their beauty.

FERN

As we walked through the paths we passed a great deal of ferns like this one below. I think these ferns are looking more fully formed and lush than their sisters of last years.

LESSER KNOWN ROSES

Nature placed the branch to which these little brown cones were attached gently across a bed of ivy and moss. She couldn't have positioned them any more perfect in my opinion because the cones look like little brown flowers from a lesser known species of rose. 

THE CHOPPED DOWN TREE

The contrast between the sharp cut of the chopped down tree and nature's own tangle of branches caught my eye. 

MOSS ON A ROCK

Behind this moss covered rock, the bare trunks of the trees seem to have sprang from another, more barren climate, yet they can only exist together. I love the way the fern hangs down like feathers.

FAIRY GLADES

It is easy to see how the idea of fairies came about when you look at these glades. Who else could you imagine living here other than those tiny translucent creatures. Fairies could hide so easily in the small crevices in the rocks, take shelter from the rain underneath the ferns and of course sit down on the softest of seats made from moss!

FLOOD POND

At the end of one of the trails we came to this recently formed pond. This is the only part of the woods that flooded. This was surprising considering the amount of nearby fields that have been transformed into lakes, complete with confused looking cows clinging to their boundary hedgerows.The line across the water is a row of wooden slats placed there for cyclists, none of whom braved the woods today.

A REST FOR THE WEARY

There are always plenty of resting places in the woods but this is my favourite. The soft blanket of moss shields you from the coldness of the rock below.

If rocks could whisper I would have heard it say 'sit down.'