Covid-19 – Stay at Home

Updated 24th March

The update is short today – stay at home.

Only walk locally once a day for exercise and ensure you keep the 2m social distancing guidelines. If you see someone ahead on a narrow pavement – cross over the road they will understand. Distancing is for everyone’s good.

None of the routes described here are appropriate for this purpose.

I will keep “Grand Day Out” online on the chance that reading some of my descriptions, maps and photographs might be helpful to someone. Perhaps to plan for future days out in better times or to help remember or experience these beautiful places.

Also I want to be ready for when restrictions lift, so I will continue to add content I have already collected and improve maps and other resources.

Stay safe

Charlie Reid

All Ways Map

Please do not do any of these walks in the present circumstances. Even if you are local to the walk and do not need to travel, many paths are too narrow to allow sufficient social distancing. Stay local on wide paths and roads you know. This is not a time for exploring!

See also Covid-19 – Stay at Home

Maps and photos note: click or tap to see any maps or photographs below as a high resolution version.

All pins and walk popups should now take you to the correct walk post. Please use the contact form if you are still experiencing any difficulties.

Walk Local – get to know your “parish”

Exercising locally is the rule we all now need to follow and local here is so local that “Grand Day Out” walks with their Northern Ireland wide focus are not appropriate.

Local highlight from my walk today

However the principle of finding walks in places others might once have considered too ordinary, too close to home – (not Instagram or social media worthy) is at the core of my purpose for “Grand Day Out (NI)”. That same principle works just as well for all our immediate neighbourhoods.

In recent times many have sadly come to view parochial as a term of derision or even abuse – yet really coming to truly know your own “parish” is a lifetime work. Patrick Kavanagh once wrote:

A gap in a hedge, a smooth rock surfacing a narrow lane, a view of a woody meadow, the stream at the junction of four small fields, these are as much as a man can fully experience.

Patrick Kavanagh from “Kavanagh’s Weekly” 24th May 1952

Also in coming to know our parish we should also come to care for and improve it, for ourselves, our neighbours and future visitors.

So as you walk local these difficult days, look and appreciate what is around you already and think and plan how we all working together it could make it even better in the future.

Stay safe – walk well

Charlie Reid

Carnfunnock Country Park

Please do not do any of these walks in the present circumstances. Even if you are local to the walk and do not need to travel, many paths are too narrow to allow sufficient social distancing. Stay local on wide paths and roads you know. This is not a time for exploring!

See also Covid-19 – Stay at Home

Maps and photos note: click or tap to see any maps or photographs below as a high resolution version.

Please reuse this map but first see https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright
TYPECircular Walk through walled garden, parkland and deciduous woodland with great sea views
DISTANCE3.5 miles / 5.6 km
SURFACESMostly well made compacted surfaces with variable slopes. Optional steeper, rougher and potential muddy section in woodland.
HEIGHT GAIN / LOSS165 feet climb
HAZARDS Optional woodland section on steeper paths requires additional care.

Carnfunnock is not just for families – this elevated parkland has walking with great sea views, a beautiful walled garden, historical interest and mature beech wood trails. It is also easily accessible to the greater Belfast area and sits on the side of the superb Antrim Coast Road – one of the great drives of these islands.

One of the 13 beautifully conceived sundial based artworks in the Time Garden
Continue reading →

Correl Glen and Carrick Viewpoint

Please do not do any of these walks in the present circumstances. Even if you are local to the walk and do not need to travel, many paths are too narrow to allow sufficient social distancing. Stay local on wide paths and roads you know. This is not a time for exploring!

See also Covid-19 – Stay at Home

Maps and photos note: click or tap to see any maps or photographs below as a high resolution version.

Please reuse this map but first see https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright
TYPECircular walk up through natural wooded glen to open mountain and viewpoint and back along riverside.
DISTANCE0.75 miles /1.2 km
SURFACESMostly well made compacted surfaces with variable slopes.
HEIGHT GAIN / LOSS150 feet climb
HAZARDS
    Some steeper path sections.

Don’t be put off by the shortness of this route – it is a great little walk crammed full of woodland and heath richness with some of the best views in Fermanagh. It certainly wouldn’t fill a day, but it would be an ideal excursion between showers on a clear fresh day when the views will be at their best and the rocky Glen fills with cascades of tumbling water. It also combines well with the Lough Navar Forest Drive and other shorter stops at the Cliffs of Magho and Lough Achork. See map at end of this post for details.

Continue reading →