After a bit of a gap, I finally managed to get out for a walk on Saturday morning which was nice. The dogs were certainly pleased after such a long break. The frogs had certainly been busy during my absence as they had spawned in a few places
It still seems a little early in the year although I guess they know what they are doing. Aside from that, there was’t a lot that had changed over the week.
This looked like an interesting detail on tree bar. Some kind of spore off the moss I guess – I should try and learn a bit more about stuff like this.
As I was at home for the day, I managed to get out for a quick walk over lunchtime. Nothing remarkable about the walk, just a pleasant walk around the loop. The weather was mostly dry – just a little drizzle towards the end but nothing really to stop me.
The place is looking a bit chewed up after the brownie and guide walks at the weekend and it is still very wet, but we managed fine. I need to get a more waterproof case for my phone really because I managed to drop it into some very shallow standing water, but no harm was done.
The plan for today was to do a brownie walk but I decided to head out before them with my son and the dogs so we got our act together quickly so as not to be over-run by a hoard of brownies. The weather was OK today but there was no sunshine and a little drizzle.
The heather is beginning to come into flower although it isn’t really visible on this picture.
We had a good stroll around and made very good time considering. There are a few nice little trees at the top of the loop and it was nice to see that they all survived the Christmas tree poaching season. People seem to rather cut down a bigger tree and take off the top 8 feet which is a bit wasteful
The foxgloves are starting to put on a bit of bulk at this stage – they are looking quite healthy in some places – whatever combination of winter conditions we are having seems to be suiting them quite nicely.
The plan for today was to get out for a walk along with the local guide group, mainly so that I could take the dogs and look after our non-guide children. Needless to say, the usual peace of the walk was pretty much shattered but it was nice to get to share the walk with a few more people.
It was quite a nice day for it with spells of sunshine and the sky had gone a very odd colour – blue which is something we haven’t seen too often lately.
A good time was had by all on the walk and the guides made a few rope bridges and such-like. A few of them got a bit wet as is wont to happen but everyone was happy at the end
After spending the morning doing jury duty and managing not to get picked, I got home in time for a lunchtime walk. Unfortunately, the overnight snow had all but disappeared so I didn’t get the pleasure of a snow walk. I did manage to get quite wet as it started pouring rain during the walk as the approach storm started to break.
It was a relatively unremarkable walk although some of the paths are getting close to impassable in hiking boots due to the amount of water flowing. If it gets much worse, I will need to alter my route a bit.
It was a fine morning when we got up – you could almost describe it as spring. So we all nipped out for a quick lap after breakfast. In particular the dogs needed it as they had been inside on their own for most of the day yesterday.
There are a few signs of spring starting to appear in the forest. The birdsong in particular seems to be getting a bit louder as everyone is waking up and there were a few bulbs pushing up shoots.
We had a nice rest at our usual resting spot while I took a few shots of fallen trees. I still only had my phone with me though so the shots aren’t brilliant.
You can see bits of lichen growing in the foreground of that one – this seems to be doing pretty well at the moment.
Anyway, we got around reasonably quickly and the weather was reasonable all through the walk.
It turned out to be a beautiful morning after a frosty night so I got out at lunchtime for a quick lap. There is a rather fabulous-looking broken tree about half-way around the walk which has a huge scar from where a branch has almost separated. I guess there would be some rather interesting grain in there if it even came down, but it always reminds of Tolkien’s Ents
For some strange reason, somebody took a mind to clearing up the fallen leaves around this area and made a few little piles. This is all quite strange as there is no other signs of maintenance anywhere in the forest.
As usual, it was a quick dash and a bolted sandwich so as to get back to work in a reasonable break for lunch. But at least I had good weather for the walk. It isn’t looking so much like I’ll get that again over the weekend.
There was a bit of a gap in the stormy weather at lunchtime so I took my chance and got out for a walk while I could. As it was a lunch walk, I was in a hurry so didn’t get to take so many pictures. Still, it was good to get out as I was a bit slack last week and only got out twice.
I love the pattern of the trees here but getting a decent picture is obviously beyond the abilities of my phone. I need to bring the good camera with me again or take it dimmer light.
At this point, the ground is pretty saturated and it doesn’t really seem to be getting any wetter. I took the short route mainly to see how wet it was. Just by way of example, this is the track at a point particularly prone to flooding. Not exactly passable.
This rarely dries out completely but it is exceptionally bad at the moment.
There was quite a blow on over the last 24 hours or so so I didn’t manage to get out on Saturday. Any, it was beautiful this morning so we all went for a walk and had a grand time of it. Oddly enough there was no moaning from any of the children so that was quite pleasant.
There wasn’t much of interest really – everything is still very wet with streams running down some of the paths. Just the usual pleasant walk.
This is our resting stop which has a nice fallen tree to sit on although I doubt it is going to be useful for much longer as it is getting quite rotten.
I managed to get out for a quick walk today and it felt a lot colder than the 4 degrees reported by the weather forecast. At least it was dry which made it a bit easier. On the way in, it was nice to see a splash of color from what I think is a rosehip. With the Holly long gone, this is pretty much the only colour in the landscape apart from the gorse which is trying to get going
When I get to the second part of the walk, there are several bridges over streams in various stages of disrepair which is odd as the route is very rarely walked. I’ve only ever met one or two others on the route.
This is the first one and is probably in the best state of any of them. Somebody went to a bit of effort putting this in.
The next one isn’t quite as strong but is in a reasonable state
The last one is really falling apart and I am going to have to try to find the time to fix it up a bit as it is extremely slippy, particularly when a bit wet.
There is another one that I made myself but it needs a little bit of work before I post a picture.
Walking forests and trails in the midlands of Ireland
