THE UNSPOILT COASTS OF COUNTY DOWN
Helen Moat returns to the landscape of her childhood holidays to explore County Down by bike. There she finds the tranquil beauty of drumlins, sea loughs and mountains little changed in 40 years
The early morning light hangs low and grey over the Irish Sea. The lap of water on shore and call of gull fill my ears as I cycle away from Helen’s Bay. I breathe in the scent of seaweed and watch the slate-grey ocean take on colour as the sky brightens. The rush of cold air needles my face and I think, “this is why I cycle”.
Having come off the Liverpool boat at Belfast not long after dawn, I am still bleary-eyed and half asleep, but raring to go. I know this County Down coastline well. My father spent summer days driving us to the Irish Sea, first in his Morris Minor and then an Austin 1300, five children wriggling in the back. We spent quiet days on beaches and in fishing villages. County Down was a slow, dreamy kind of place back then in the 60s and 70s – bucolic and tranquil.
Later, I left Northern Ireland behind to live in England. Once, I cycled to Istanbul along Europe’s rivers and across the islands of the Baltic Sea – always drawn to water.
Recently I felt an urge to bike the Down coast of my childhood. What was it like now? How had it changed from the subdued days of the Troubles? I decided to cycle the Ards Peninsula along the Irish Sea, explore
Strangford Lough and the Lecale coast – Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty – and continue round the base of the Mourne Mountains to Rostrevor on Carlingford Lough. It would be a slow journey between lough and drumlins, sea and hills.
NEW PROSPERITY
At Bangor, I find the down-at-heel town of the Troubles gone, replaced by yacht-filled
“I CATCH THE AROMA OF FRESHLY BAKED WHEATEN BREAD AND HEAR THE LOW, PLAINTIVE CALL OF CURLEW”
marinas, neatly kept municipal gardens and freshly painted seafront houses. I hug shore roads and promenades to the outskirts, then cut across Ballymacormick Point to Groomsport, following the sea all the way to Donaghadee – and breakfast with my husband Tom, who is following by car.
I want to linger in this seaside town of my childhood, now barely recognisable with its smart pub restaurants and chic cafés, but I’ve still more than 30 miles to cycle before reaching Portaferry on the Narrows between the Irish Sea and Strangford Lough. I promise myself that I’ll return later to explore this fishing village with its hilltop castle, harbour and lighthouse at the end of the pier.
Between Donaghadee and Portavogie, the road follows the curves of the coast. My bike leans into the sea where coves scallop the coastline. Watching two women wade out into a small bay to swim, I shiver; it’s still early spring. Cycling through low-key coastal villages, I catch the aroma of freshly baked wheaten bread. I hear the low, plaintive call of curlew on seashores. And I realise I’d have missed all this in the car.
At Ballywalter, my brother joins me and we cycle on through quiet coastal communities little changed since our childhood: sleepy, modest, still a little neglected. From Millisle to Portavogie, the fields between the traditional low-lying cottages are now filled in with new-builds and caravan parks.
“I prefer the stretch after Portavogie,” my brother says, “still untouched by development; more like the rural Ireland we knew growing up.”
He’s right. At the tip of the Ards Peninsula, we wriggle through narrow country lanes, empty but for the odd farm dwelling, the stump of an old windmill and St Cooey’s
Well with its healing waters. On Bar Hill Road, I catch a flash of orange on the glassy sheen of an inlet. Oystercatchers. The road rolls on through drumlins, then curves north again alongside the Narrows into Portaferry where the ferry ploughs back and forth from Strangford, avoiding the eddies that broil in the neck of the lough.
Strangford Lough is surprisingly quiet considering its watery beauty. There are two exquisite stately homes overlooking the sea lough – Castle Ward and Mount Stewart – ruined castle keeps and abbeys, and drumlin islands that scatter the coast on the western shore like whales rising from the sea. You can cycle Route 99 around Strangford, the country roads following the shoreline at times, veering away at others. But the best way to see the lough and its islands is by boat, and the lower you are on the water, the better.
We meet up with John Hubbucks of Mobile Team Adventure at Whiterock and paddle between drumlin islands by canoe. Cattle graze island meadows, shipped over on rafts from the mainland, or driven across when the tide is out. A skein of brent geese takes off above our heads. “Look behind,” says John as we paddle between islets. “A seal’s following us.”
Strangford is internationally important for its marine life: it’s one of only three designated marine nature reserves in the UK, a Site of Special Scientific Interest and an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
It’s a popular stopover for overwintering birds and, if you’re lucky, you might even spot a basking shark.
WHERE MOUNTAINS MEET THE SEA
Leaving the 18th-century estate village of Strangford behind, I continue south on my bike to the Mourne Mountains. The sun is shining on the Narrows as I cycle beside it, now on the other side. I pass Cloghy Rocks Nature Reserve, where the proprietor of Strangford’s Cuan Hotel had been the day before, and “not seen a soul except for a colony of seals”. I pause at Kilclief to admire the castle, one of the many Norman tower houses that dot Strangford Lough and Lecale. The small town of Ardglass lays claim to six of these gatehouses, although my parents always headed straight for the harbour to pick up whiting for a fish supper.
I round the bay at Killough and sail through the tree-lined village of Georgian houses and low-lying cottages. I find
Patrice, a French seafood farmer, outside his boatshed on the edge of the village. “Come in,” he says, his accent a charming mix of Ulster and French. “Welcome to Lecale Harvest. Would you like to try some of my oysters?” He cracks a few open. I tip them back and it feels as if I’ve swallowed the sea.
I continue through empty country lanes, watching the Mournes emerge from the drumlins. I pass close to St John’s Point with its black and yellow bee-striped lighthouse, Tyrella Beach, where the Austin had got stuck in the sand, and Dundrum Bay with its glassy waters – all places that belong to my past. At Murlough Bay, Tom and I tramp boardwalks through dunes to the beach, the snow-marbled summits of Slieve Donard and Commedagh reflected in its shallows. In Northern Ireland, the weather can change not just from hour to hour but from minute to minute. Great creamy clouds billow across the sky, then darken to spill hailstones before the sun comes out and black turns to watery blue – all in the space of a few steps.
INTO THE MOURNES
I manage to dodge the rain on my bike between Newcastle and the lovely fishing village of Annalong with its little cornmill. Above Kilkeel, at the foot of the Mournes, Tom and I find a clachan of traditional Irish cottages at Hanna’s Close, and Tilly’s Tearoom where we feast on chowder, wheaten bread and apple tart and warm up by the peat fire – the taste and smells of my childhood. Deeper into the Mourne Mountains at Spelga Dam, I find a landscape so otherworldly that I see why the Mournes conjured up Narnia for CS Lewis. Conical mountains rise up beyond the reservoir in symmetrical loveliness and I wonder why I have no memory of this place. “Out of bounds during the Troubles,” my brother tells me later – and all becomes clear.
Back on the coast, I make my way along the wooded shore road of Carlingford Lough to Rostrevor and the end of my journey.
I’m relieved to find the County Down of my childhood still exists, even as it changes and flourishes. This county of drumlins, sea, loughs and mountains is slowly being discovered by the wider world, delighting in its rural charm and gentle beauty. There’s no better way to experience all this than from the seat of a bicycle.
“I’M RELIEVED TO FIND THE COUNTY DOWN OF MY CHILDHOOD STILL EXISTS, EVEN AS IT CHANGES”