walking routes in meath and louth

mickm86

does anyone have any routes that can be completed inside of one day in meath and louth. routes that are good for starting out on to increase fitness?? thanks

dogmatix

You could walk from oldbridge house to newgrange visitor centre and back - all very flat (its beside the boyne the whole way) but a few parts of the path are blocked requiring detours over and through dense undergrowth. Much of the route is under water during any sort of heavy rainfall so at the moment it would be pretty impassable.

Other than that not really - I don't know the area very well. I get the impression that much of meath is fairly flat.

Alun

In Louth you've got the Cooleys near Carlingford, see here. There are some other lower level looped walks around Carlingford too.

I don't think there's much in Meath, but just over the border to the north you've got Slieve Gullion forest park, or slightly further away the Mournes, of course.

paulocon

Alun wrote: »

In Louth you've got the Cooleys near Carlingford, see here. There are some other lower level looped walks around Carlingford too.

I don't think there's much in Meath, but just over the border to the north you've got Slieve Gullion forest park, or slightly further away the Mournes, of course.

Alun has given a good summary of what's available. The Cooleys are my local mountains and I've been spending quite a bit of time up there recently. The walk up Slieve Foye from Carlingford isn't too taxing and has the reward of beautiful views across Carlingford Lough over to the Mourne Mountains. For something longer and more interesting, you can walk the ridge as far as Long Woman's grave - you would need to be competent at navigation to attempt that one though.

As Alun said, close to the Cooleys is Slieve Gullion and a slightly longer drive opens up a whole range of possibilities with the Mourne Mountains (get hold of Paddy Dillon's book 'The Mourne Walks' as there are loads of routes in that).

For something less taxing, I think there are organised walks along the strand from Mornington to Balbriggan every so often but not sure who organises them.

As mentioned above, you can theoretically walk from Drogheda to Navan along the river/canal but I'm not sure how passable that route is and sections of it do suffer from flooding.

mickm86

thanks for the ideas and links!!

paulocon

mickm86 wrote: »

thanks for the ideas and links!!

Enjoy!

Hoping to head up to Cooley tomorrow morning to do a bit of trail running along the ridge. Driving into work this morning, I could just about make out blue skies above the fog so I'd imagine there'd be a cloud inversion to be seen if up there this morning!

Alun

Looks like it's going to be a fine clear weekend looking at the forecast .. and this would be the only weekend in the last few months that I can't get out walking

newmug

The town of Trim has a relatively new "walk" around the Porchie Fields. Its a nice scenic wlak along the Boyne, taking in some of the main historical sites, and ending with a nice little pub to refresh yourself! Its not a big power walk or anything, takes about 40 mins - 1 hr. I'd recommend doing it at least once in your life, if only to see the sights. Trim is really a beautiful little town.

You could do the Royal Canal aswell!

You should also open this thread in the Meath forum. Might get a few more ideas!

paulocon

Up on Slieve Foye today for a run and the conditions were superb. Clear blue skies and amazing visibility. Funny how November sometimes throws up such great weather for the hills..