Slieve Binnian, Mountains of Mourne

What a wonderful day. (Apart from having to navigate in the dark from the Belfast port to Carrick Little car park, in readiness for the next day’s walk, as Gertie Google was in a huff and wouldn’t speak to me). We got there at 3.30 am and had a sleep. However the minor road by the car park was busy from 4.30 am and my sciatica was hurting so sleep was hard to come by.

We had breakfast and set off up the track, with beautiful dry stone walls on each side. We soon discovered there was no shortage of the enormous stones - the route up was steep and eroded. Every upward step up was high which made it hard work. It was one of those hills (2449ft, 746m, almost a Corbett) with lots of false summits. The true summit eventually appeared and we wandered round, wondering how best to attain the top of the tor. Some scrambling ensued, but we made it. Then it was nice springy turf along the ridge till the steep decent, which Mr C is about to tackle. Then it was a long walk out on a stoney path.

We had glorious sun and sleet and hail and rain. The whole walk was under 8 miles but it was from al OST sea level, and so rough underfoot that it felt further. I wore walking shoes rather than walking sandals because of the rough terrain, but the arthritic foot isn’t half complaining.

We had 1.5 hours to drive across beautiful scenery and via many B roads to reach our camp site west of Belfast, near the largest European lake west of Lake Genera, Lough Neagh. First stop was the hot showe! Yes, the luxury of a shower is included in our £12.50 charge. ,