Fire by hand drill

Fire by hand drill

Sunday 1 May 2011

Antrim Hills way section 3.

Hi,

As I mentioned in a previous post I walked a section of the way on Friday. Unfortunately I wasn't invited to the royal wedding so I had to do something.

The Way extends for 23 miles across the antrim Plateau. The terrain is elevated moorland and bog and it is quite desolate and isolated in places.

The place is teeming with wildlife and within a few hours I saw 2 Mountain Hares their coats still showing signs of the white winter fur.

This section of the way follows a line of cliffs with seams of chalk.

Old, stunted Rowan and Hawthorn cling to ledges and cracks on the cliffs.

I haven't spent that much time in the antrim hills having always favoured the more popular Mourne mountains.

My interest in the Antrim hills has been peaked by a friends recounting of tales of adventure in the frequent mists and talk about the numerous ancient standing stones and other neolithic sites.

The beauty of the place is sublime with views of the sea to the East and moorland to the west.

There are lots of hidden hollows, sink holes and pools. Buzzards and crows circle above.

The last thing I will mention is that if you want to be a great navigator this is the place to practise. The land is featureless and micro navigation is the name of the day when the mist descends and visibility is reduced to metres.

I do love a bit of navigation I do.

My self and my best friend plan to walk the entire thing in a day in the coming weeks so that should be fun.

We have already conquered the 28 mile Moyle way in 09 which was a bit of endurance event but a great experience.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

1 comment:

Gorges Smythe said...

Sounds interesting. Those navigation skills should keep you from covering the same ground more than once, should a mist rollin.