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.