The weather is on the up with temperatures in double figures the first weekend of February. Saturday is spring-like, warm enough to go without a jacket and toward dusk, when cycling home through Tollymore forest, the sun filters golden through the trees, then further on, passing by a large field with a clump of trees on a rise, I see the sun set leaving the trees in dark silhouette against a complete red sky, boding well for Sunday; which, dawns without a cloud and turns out a glorious sunny day. You'd be fooled into thinking it is late April, if not for nightfall coming at six.
On such days the lighthouse at St John's Point seen from the seaside town of Newcastle looks a nice relaxed bike.
I set off shortly after ten; relatively late, because on Sunday morning I like to catch a good ethical debate program on the radio while lingering over a second mug of tea. To plan I ride inland upon back roads, pass through the village of Seaforde straddling the A24, then continue on back roads to Downpatrick. This later back road I've never been on before, and mores the pity, as it is next to traffic free and is a pleasant riding byroad along a valley with hawthorn hedgerows dividing pasture fields, which rise up round hillsides either side. Then passes a reed fringed lake, then a second lake where I ride into a small car park and the moment I turn to walk to the water's edge, there's a swan waiting for me by a little pier and another swan gliding over the water toward the pier. Apparently used to people coming to feed them bread scraps.
These swans are used to people coming to feed them.
The last couple of miles are on the A25, the twisty blind road with a steady flow of fast traffic I'd avoided until this point, into Downpatrick with hilltop cathedral; where patron saint, St Patrick is believed to rest in the churchyard. The rest of the town sprawls over the brows of surrounding hills, but all through-routes remain on the level in the canyon of redbrick terrace houses with shops at street level. At a corner I turn right for Ardglass, the B175 and while stopped at a red-light, muse up at the old hospital on a rise with windows boarded up, shut, due to cuts and centralisation of services in recent years. One of my earliest memories is August 1969, my father in a Ford Anglia car with me in the back, picking up my mother and newly arrived baby-twin brother and sister from the hospital to go home.
Sheep ready to lamb outside countytown Downpatrick.
The B175 is another road I haven't been much on in the past, as I usually go a longer way round by the mouth of tidal-inlet Strangford lough. It is a straight five miles to the coast and a couple of miles more through bayside village Killough and on to St John's Point lighthouse, which I have all to myself, though I've to view it from the outside as there is no access. I've seen in the local paper that the lighthouse from 1841 is threatened with closure. More cuts.
St John's Point lighthouse looks out over Dundrum bay.
The homeward road follows the coast west with the Mourne mountains ahead, looming sheer out of the sea, about fifteen miles away around a crescent shaped coast. On the way there's beaches including Tyrella, bringing back more happy childhood memories of family visits to the beach on Sundays. Eventually the road turns inland to join the A24 into Dundrum, then onward upon a causeway across a tidal-inlet and pass sand dunes into Newcastle, full of traffic and people brought out by the fine weather. I halt for coffee. There's a long queue in the café and most seats are taken. And trying to connect to the internet is frustrated by the weight of phones in the general vicinity already connected. Sometimes I just hate crowds.
Coming out there's a chill in the air as the sun momentarily passes behind the mountain as it's gone five. Time to ride home, late for lunch.
This lady ran down to the hedge when she saw me. When she realised I'd nothing for her, she turned and bound back up the field kicking heals in disgust.
