"Each step forward has a sacred meaning of its own"   Sri Chinmoy

Carlingford Forest hike May 2019

This is the best way to squeeze a hike into a weekend away - get there early and do it on the Saturday! So often, we try and crowbar it into the last afternoon before we head home, but having been in Dublin Friday night for the Songs of the Soul concert at the Unitarian Church, we were able to arrive in Carlingford in the middle of the day rather than just before the evening program started.

Some quick googling in the cafe came up with Slieve Foy Forest as a good spot to aim for, with the promise of nice views and easy going. I headed out of Carlingford with Ashcharjya, Devashishu and Sahadeva, on a quiet lane running along the hillside parallel to the coast. Google Maps was all I had to find the way and most of it was lovely - we paused briefly to soak up the sound of streams or chat with a horse over the fence - but we ended up on the main road at one point which wasn't so great. Then Devashishu loaded up his Windy Maps app which I've since downloaded myself and things improved a lot! It has all the trails that google doesn't and you can actually use it for offline trekking navigation. That got us back to the village on trails and fire roads through the pine plantations, which opened out every so often for the best views of the day.

Ashcharjya, Sahadeva and Devashishu in the Slieve Foy Forest.

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