Seefin Mountain Ballyhoura

On Sunday 1st. October the club outing was to the Ballyhoura mountains. We set off at 8.30 and headed to the start near Ardpatrick in Co. Limerick. Here there is a secure monitored car park. Toilets showers changing room tea and coffee are also available. This is also a major mountain biking area the largest in Ireland with 98 klms of trails.
After a quick coffee we took the purple trail which would lead us to Seefin mountain summit at 528 meters. This walk is varied and has some farm tracks, wood land and open mountain. The weather wasn't great and there was some mist and fog. Rain gear was put on and taken off a few times. Towards the top on open mountain is was very windy. We took shelter at the foot of the trig point and had refreshments. Is is said that on a clear day you can see the six counties of Munster from here, but for us it was not to be as a fog brought visibility down to about a hundred meters. While we were sheltering in the lee of the rock a hardy soul sped by in shorts and singlet.
Refreshed we made our way down hill. After some time we entered forestry and here we had another pit stop. We had a group photo taken here. On again we went until we finally arrived back to the starting point. Here we availed of the changing room to change out of our sodden boots and gear.
This was a very enjoyable walk and would be even better without the fog.

After we made our way to the Gallery in Mallow for the customary refreshments and chat which is an
important part of the day out. There were some ambitious suggestions for next year discussed.

First time to the Ballyhouras

A few weeks ago on our second trip of the year we headed to the Ballyhoura Mountains which was perfect in many ways in that it was not that far away especially at this time of the year and the fact we were walking for the most part on Forrest roadways. The day itself was cloudy, windy and mucky but we as usual made the most of it and got on with it and enjoyed the day.
 We parked in the Coillte ran car park, we departed by going back out onto the road & on back southwards for a small bit before we turned left down a small country road facing out towards the Galtees in the distance before we looped onto the main road again before crossing onto the mountain side again using the Forest roadway along the way. There was one steep section of this roadway but other than that it was a great walk for a February Sunday morning.
 Once we reached the top of the roadway we took a short stroll to go to our first peak which faced out towards Tipperary & Limerick but the view was cloudy and not really much to take note of because of this.
 We moved on and over the road and we decided to head for the top of Seefin Mt. and compliments must go out here as Timber Sleepers have laid to overcome the one really mucky part of our journey. When we reached the top the one thing we noticed was that the wind had picked up & with it a big chill factor with the blow. We had a short break before we set on our way again.
 We descended using the Mountain tracks which are well waymarked, the one thing to watch out is that some are for bikes only and we finally got back through the Forest back to our cars.
 Again compliments go out to the great available facilities for changing afterwards and this is one place we will return to again