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| TYPE | |
|---|---|
| DISTANCE | 6.1 miles / 9.8 km |
| SURFACES | Mostly well made woodland tracks with some less defined path walking |
| HEIGHT GAIN / LOSS | 530 feet climb |
| HAZARDS | Major road crossing, |
Walking in lakeland sounds attractive, but is actually very difficult. Lower Lough Erne alone has well over 125 miles of shoreline – but only a minute fraction of this is available to walkers. Also the best ‘lakeland’ walking is often on hills with views over the water – think of the English Lake District. So a good lakeland walk needs actual lakeside paths and hills with lake views. Ely and Carrickreagh Woods have both!
This is my walk introduction written in 2020 before the precious shore access was lost.
In addition, this walk passes through some glorious semi-mature beech and larch wood and visits a beautiful hidden valley with Turloughs (vanishing limestone based lakes!)
Getting there
Ely Lodge Forest is immediately adjacent to the A46 Loughshore Road. It is 5 miles from Enniskillen and marked by a brown Forest Service / Geopark sign.
Cars can be parked in the access layby and also in a smaller car park down a short track by the lough shore.
To walk in Carrickreagh Woods you must now park by the forest access track 500m metres below the now defunct Ely Lodge forest amenity area. See below for details:
The route
Leave the car park by the tarmac path, heading north with the lough to your right.
This section of lough shore features a number of former crannogs – small artificial islands on which dwellings would have stood. They were a kind of aquatic rath (these are also common in this area) and defence and control would have been a key part of their function.
As you walk you will gain glimpses of the lough between the trees. Land here not claimed by agriculture (or holiday parks) is soon colonised by the natural succession of scrub and woodland providing rich habitat, but limiting visibility of the lough. In our searches for views on this route we will always be competing with trees to see the sky and water.
After 300m you come to the junction with the Carrickreagh Wood path on your left – stay with the lough and continue straight ahead until you reach Carrickreagh Jetty.
The Jetty makes an excellent viewpoint for the lough, its islands and Carrickreagh Wood , but do be aware it can be very slippy in wet or icy conditions!
From Carrickreagh Jetty you can look back to the disused Carrickreagh limestone quarry. The ‘explanatory memoir’ of the Geological Survey of 1845 states:
“The dip here cannot be determined ; but there is no reason to suppose that the bedding has been at all disturbed, as the lower beds of Carrickreagh Quarry are beautifully shown in a clean face of rock, some 300 yards long, and about 80 feet high, in a horizontal position, the beds being very massive, averaging 3 feet thick, slightly fossiliferous, and taking a very fine polish. For building purposes, grave-stones, chimney-pieces, &c., a finer stone it would be impossible to find; and, owing to its being on the very shores of Lough Erne, the cost of carriage as necessarily small.”Explanatory Memoir to accompany Sheet 44 of the maps of the Geological Survey Of Ireland (1845)
In an age before lorries, barges were the heavy transport of choice so Carrickreagh was ideally placed to source and supply the stone that built Enniskillen and beyond. The lough level was higher then as well so the shore road was sandwiched tightly between the great quarry and the water’s edge – without the wooded strip we see today.
By 1900 the quarry had closed, presumably as tastes in building changed, and new materials became available from further afield.
Now retrace your steps 300m to the Carrickreagh Wood path junction.
Enter Carrickreagh Wood adjacent to by a small layby and information sign.
You are now in a woodland comprised mainly of beech alternating with blocks of larch. This is a deciduous woodland unlike much of our commercial forestry, but it is still a plantation with a uniformity of tree spacing and age and a grid of forest service roads. OS maps of 1830 show this area as woodland and, at that stage, it probably would have been primarily oak. However, the Geological Survey Memoirs of 1845 contain the following observation:
“Proceeding along the road towards Ely Lodge, the greater part of the planted ground, known as the “new plantations”, has the limestone close to the surface, and cropping up repeatedly.”
1845 Geological Survey of Ireland Memoir for Sheet 44
The forest track network we see today was fully established by 1900, probably as a means of harvesting and replanting the area as a beech woodland. The limestone is largely hidden under the canopy with the major exception of the precipitous quarry walls which, as you climb, lie below to your right.
After 250m steady climb the track bends right away from the old quarry edge directly ahead. In the winter months there is a fine opens up here over the lough and islands.
Continue for another 300m to a forest track junction where you turn sharp left. After a short distance you leave the track, turning left at a way-mark onto a footpath running up a wooded ridge to the shelter and viewpoint.
You now climb a beautiful beechwood ridge up to the Carrickreagh Viewpoint.
The building is a relatively modern wooden pole construction sitting on a much older very substantial block built foundation. Initially I thought it might have been a Victorian landscape feature associated with Ely Lodge and its landscaped driveways – but old maps show no evidence of this. Perhaps it had some forestry / industrial function or maybe it is just a relatively modern foundation for a viewpoint shelter like we see today. Anyhow it makes for a fine point to grab a rare view of this island-rich stretch of lough.
Continue of the ridge path back down to the forest track. Now turn sharp right and loop back to the track junction you recently passed where you now turn left uphill to explore the higher section of Carrickreagh Wood.
About 150m up this track you seem to be converging with a track (or rough lane) coming in from the right. However, the two tracks never join even though they approach to about a metre apart (separated by a ruined wall) after which they diverge uphill in different directions!
Looking at the trees around you suggests a simple explanation. To your left is clearly beech and larch plantation – across the ruined wall the woodland is much more diverse and scrubby with largely native species. This then was almost certainly the former plantation boundary and the other track was for the use of a different landowner.
Continue uphill as the track bends to the left before levelling as you approach a track junction where you turn right slightly uphill into the heart of the beech wood. This is a delightful section of walking along a minor track up and over a low ridge within a maturing beech wood. The track itself has a different nature and may be older than the plantation road you have just left.
As you reach the woodland edge the character of the track has changes again. This farm-like lane seems to belong more to the partially wooded fields to your right than the forest you have just walked through. However, I think there is a more interesting origin here. The OS map of 1830 shows this track as part of a continuous road between Enniskillen and Ballyshannon. The Geological memoires of 1846 state:
“The ground between the old and new coach roads between Enniskillen and Ballyshannon, from Levally Glebe House to the Quarries of Carrickreagh, is formed of limestone, which shows itself in every little stream; and at the higher parts of Fardrum and Carrickreagh, there are innumerable limestone ridges, running parallel in a N.W. and S.E. direction.”
1845 Geological Survey of Ireland Memoir for Sheet 44
So I will refer to this track from now on as the as “the old coach road”.
In November 2025 there were two fallen trees down across the old coach road at different points here. Negotiate with care always checking above you for dangerous branches which, even on a calm day, are a small but significant hazard for forest walkers.
Even without the historical significance, edges in general, and woodland edges in particular, are often rewarding places to explore.
The partially wooded pasture to your right is mainly concealed by high hedges but as you proceed along the track you will gain glimpses of the farmland low ridge and valley which now runs parallel to your route.
After 700m you come to a junction with a broad path on your left which rises slightly to a crest before descending into the wood below. You can turn left here to shorten the walk but the main route proceeds straight ahead.
Continue south along the boundary lane until you come to a junction on your left with a forest track and a low metal gate.
Looking back, the low ridge hides the shallow valley beyond and Green Lough which (usually) sits in its floor. This is the second of the three Turloughs which lie in the base of the hidden shallow limestone valley.
Go around the gate climbing slightly before dropping down to a forest track crossroads.
You now arrive at a cross roads, (B) on the map below, where you have a choice. The main route here turns left back toward the car parking. However a short extension straight ahead gives you a chance to view Fardrum Lough – a geologically and botanically significant feature.
Fardrum Lough the Vanishing Lake (option 1.4km)
You are walking in limestone country (Karst) and the normal rules of Irish hills no longer apply! Rather than water being trapped in blanket bog above impermeable rock, the underlying rocks here are permeated with underground passages and waterways. Where these meet the surface, streams and lakes can come and go in abrupt and unexpected ways! Fardrum Lough is a Turlough a geologically important feature associated with Ireland and in one site in Wales:
“Turloughs are seasonally-flooded lakes in karstic limestone areas, that are principally filled by subterranean waters via ephemeral springs or estavelles, and drain back into the groundwater table via swallets or estavelles – they have no natural surface outlet.”
UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee website
Because of their hidden water supply and therefore persistence over time they create a unique limestone environment and support important distinctive vegetation communities.
So, to visit Fardrum Lough just continue along the track straight ahead for 700m until it exits the woodland at the public road. From here you should have a good view of the Lough (if it is not in its vanished state!)
Now retrace your steps to the plantation track crossroads (B).
Main route continues
Now head north west from (B) to back towards your starting point.
A (C) on the map you could go straight ahead – but the more interesting option is to turn right into another old lane way as it twists downhill.
Again this path feels older and certainly more interesting than the vehicle track grid you have just left behind.
All to soon you come to another another plantation road where you turn left.
700m along this track turn downhill at waymarked path junction downhill to rejoin the forest access road you entered by.
Turn left downhill and 200m will bring you back to the roadside car parking.
You now return to the lough and turn right along the shore. The wooded isle ahead to your right conceals the modern Ely Lodge which gives this area its name. An historical oddity is recorded in the NIEA register of historic properties:
“In 1870 Ely Castle was blown up as the climax of festivities marking the coming of age of the fourth Marquess of Ely (1849-1889), who had succeeded as a boy aged only eight.”Register of parks, gardens and demesnes of special historic interest (NIEA)
The ultimate in extravagant youthful high spirits or, more charitably, a manifestation of the Victorian fascination with the power of applied science? The historical record does not make this clear! There had been an intention to replace the castle with a new build but this was not followed through. In the 1880’s the former castle stable yard was converted into a residence and this is the building which bears the name ‘Ely Lodge’ today!
Enjoy your final ration of true loughside walking on the return to the car park and don’t forget to watch out for the rich water bird life which abounds here.
Route Map to Download and Print (PDF)
External Links
- Turloughs (Wikipedia)
- Green and Fardrum Turloughs (Joint Nature Conservation Committee website)