"Where the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea." The song is right: the Mournes do sweep down to the sea. But what the song leaves out is the sheer majesty of these blue-grey, purply giants. Walking along the main street of Newcastle, your eye is constantly drawn up to the mass of Slieve Donard. With such a view, shopping seems even more mundane. Only the cold-hearted could fail to be impressed. Driving along the Mourne coast road you feel tiny, an insect caught between the giants and the deep. The mountains stretch as high as you can see and the sea as far as you can see - maybe to Scotland, on a clear day. We stayed in a beautifully restored cottage above the small village of Annalong, surrounded by farmland, with the sea below and the mountains above. The townie kids were delighted to see sheep and cows in the fields around us. The cottage had central heating, a dishwasher, and other home comforts, as well as wooden and quarry-tiled floors.
Sheltered harbour
Annalong has a sheltered harbour for fishing boats and a picturesque restored corn mill perched beside it. The mill was built in the 1800s and operated until the 1960s. It is operated by a 15-foot waterwheel. We had a go at grinding our own corn. Newcastle, a short drive away, is a typical seaside town with slot machines, dodgems and sticks of rock, tall houses that might remind you of Bray or Blackpool, and a dastardly one-way system. After strolling around and doing some shopping we considered afternoon tea in the Slieve Donard Hotel but, thinking of the impending dinner in Glassdrumman Lodge, we opted instead for a drink and crisps in the Percy French, a pleasant pub with a full restaurant right beside the hotel.
In the other direction was Kilkeel, where we almost joined the Memorial Day parade on a sunny Sunday afternoon. It was here in 1941 that my husband's parents met. She was a radar operator for the RAF and he was a contractor for the RAF, building a runway. They were married after a short service and then headed to Dublin for lunch in Jammet's - a real treat during the Emergency, but a short honeymoon.
If you like hill-walking, Co Down is full of wonderful trails and hidden beauty. Take the Silent Valley, home of the reservoir built in the 1920s to supply Belfast with 30 million gallons of water a day. A more beautiful place you could not imagine. The valley really is silent; just the odd bird call to distract you from the view of silver water and towering mountains. The place is a testament to how good planning can make a utility into an amenity. The dams are the focus for an attractive parkland. The visitor centre has an exhibition explaining how the dam was built.
Children's playground
The walks around the Silent Valley are well signposted. Apart from the main reservoir, there's Sally's Lough, a corry lake high in the hills, Ben Crom, another reservoir, and several ponds that are home to lilies and ducks. Hidden under the trees is a playground for the children and the steep slope up to the reservoir is beautifully grassed, a temptation to any child to climb and roll down.
It is just as well we had worked up an appetite, for the six-course dinner at Glasdrumman Lodge was wonderful. Glassdrumman is a 200-acre farm which produces food for the restaurant, with the seafood supplied by local fishermen. Next day we decided to work off the Ulster fry and Glassdrumman's dinner by conquering Slieve Binnian. Parking on the Head Road we set off to find the Blue Lough high in the hills. The walk is quite strenuous and took us first up through farmland, where for one moment we stopped suddenly on hearing panpipes. Mystified, we discovered the sound was caused by the wind blowing through the rounded granite boulders that make up the stone walls - so different from the West, where the stones are sharp-edged.
Continuing on to the track proper, we passed Annalong Wood where the trees soughing in the wind sounded like waves on the shore. Some people who had camped out the previous night suddenly appeared above the trail, shaking out their sleeping bags. Ever upwards, the trail getting steeper, it was time to take our bearings from the excellent set of walking maps we got from the Northern Ireland Tourist Board. Two-thirds of the way there. We'd got so far we would have to continue. A last spurt up the rocky granite trail suddenly brought the Blue Lough into view. It really was blue, the blue of the sea on a sunny day. Close up, it looked more silvery, surrounded by rusted grasses and heathers and watched over by a sheer grey cliff. The journey down was like every journey down, quicker and easier; we felt full of fresh air and achievement.
The weekend was too short; there was so much more we could have seen and done but it gave a taste of what to expect on our next visit which I hope will not be too long away.
Carlingford
Homeward bound on a sunny afternoon, we headed back around the Down coast and along Carlingford Lough and then decided to stop in Carlingford for a meal. This medieval beauty of a town is showing all the signs of revitalisation, with new buildings and newly refurbished premises. Its always busy on Sunday, with little open across the Border. We passed on the famed oysters and settled for something more mundane, but tasty.
When people say the roads in the North are better, believe it. We had bumped and bounced our way into Carlingford, but the road out was worse. Having stayed there many times, I can say the road to Greenore Port is one of the busiest and worst in the country. When is the EU money going to spread to Greenore?