Antrim: A gem of a walk...

We walked a great circular route in Antrim today. From the fantastic new gardens at Clotworthy House, we walked along the Six Mile Water following the Mill Race Walk to Muckamore. Magic wildlife can be found here, and as well as a Dipper and a couple of Herons, we spotted our first Kingfisher, a glowing blue blur dashing low over the river. That really made the day that did.

Backtracking a bit, we took to Kirby’s Lane which winds through a scene of bucolic loveliness and despite the fact that it is a public road it had not a car on it.

We passed across the Dublin Road and onto the path going down to Rea’s Wood, hugging the Lough Neagh shoreline.  The path took us back to the Lough Shore car park where we met the Six Mile Water again. A short ramble took us back to Clotworthy House. In short, a really nice lowland walk, along a beautiful river and with lots of great woodlands. And because of this, very atypical for Northern Ireland.

Congrats and kudos to Antrim Council for having the vision to develop this walk. It forms a great blueprint for what can be accomplished to improve countryside access, and is one that other councils would do well to study and follow. Despite the poor weather, the walk was being well used by families and dog walkers.

One final note: there was relatively little litter along the length of this walk but there was some, left by the type of people I can only classify as idiots. The council obviously work hard to keep on top of this, but if you are ever out on a walk either here or anywhere else, you can help things enormously by lifting some of the litter you might see.