The Mournes Wall Challenge

The Mournes Wall Challenge – a 33KM circular walk with 3000 metres of ascent, in the magical Mournes of Northern Ireland. The Mourne Wall was built by the Belfast City and District Water Commissioners and was completed in 1922.It marks and protects the water catchment area, including the Silent Valley and Ben Crom reservoirs. After an initially feeble bit of research into accommodation, the trip only came to fruition after a fortuitous meeting with Alan Tees, co-author of a marvellous book, Irish Peaks. He put us in touch with Belfast Mountaineering Club who have a Hut, Henry’s Cottage, situated in the heart of the Mournes. We soon rustled up a few members to take the challenge and the ferry and accommodation was swiftly booked for September 2022.

Attendees

Bill Dallas, Jim Aire, Raymond Evendon, Lorn Smith, James Fraser, George and Susan Henderson

Report

Henry’s Cottage was just perfect – a home from home really from the Huts we’re used to in Scotland. We settled in and had an early night, dreaming of the day ahead. Not the earliest start saw us ascend the first summit of the day Slieve Binnian from Carrick Little car park. The view from the summit looking East to the rising sun over the tiny emerald fields was spectacular. A sharp descent to the Silent Valley reservoir saw us stop for a break, perhaps not fully realising the task we still had ahead!

Route finding isn’t a problem on this walk, with the Wall being of major assistance! We followed long stretches of the impressive Wall, up and over more Slieve’s than I care to remember. We enjoyed a leisurely pace in perfect conditions of sunshine with a welcome cooling breeze. Lots of photos were taken with the small top of Doan looking particularly photogenic – we could have been in Scotland! Quite like Arran in places. Unfortunately, the final peak of Slieve Donard still seemed to be very far away, and we began to note the sharp rises and falls which meant that a lot of hard work was still required. This proved to be the case, and a beautiful sunset met us on our final top, which meant that torches were required on the way down. Several people were on the summit to take in the gorgeous sunset, so I suppose it was fortuitous that we had had such an easy pace all day!

The following day we had a short walk directly from the Hut into the Mournes and a well-deserved refreshment in the afternoon. The hospitality in the village of Attical was outstanding and we enjoyed super company and not a few drinks with the locals in a convivial atmosphere!

I’d encourage everyone to take a trip to the Mournes – they really are lovely accessible mountains – Are you up for the Challenge?