walking the canals

[Donal Quinn]

hey
this came up on another thread so i thought i might see if anyone has any ideas on itinerarys for walking the canals

i've done a few sections on the royal - phibsboro-clonsilla, maynooth-clonsilla and enfield-maynooth (that last one is 20k - bit too long!!)
and one on the grand - sallins-robertstown - really nice route - lots of interesting bits - although robertstown is not on any bus/rail route :(

the railway follows the canals for much of their route out of dublin so it makes it handy for getting there and back...

if anyone is interested in a nice 4k walk get the train to ashtown and walk to castleknock - really nice section and you walk over the M50 too which is cool

anyone done some of these or got other ideas for flat walks???

[Colm Donoghue]

I cycled from Cross Gunns to Louisa Brigdge before. nice once you get past the Rathoath Road, little soft for a while after the halfway house.
The cutting through to Clonsilla from Castleknock is fun.

was gonna try get the whole way to Longford in stages, but can't bring bike on train any more. the section from Cross gunns up towards cabra is wierd. theres about 4 houses up a boreen with green fields behind them and accross the canal is corpo houses in the city. middle of the countryside in the middle of the city kinda thing. maybe more disconcerting than weird.

Donabate to Malahide would be flat too (at low tide) Donabate station - Newbridge demesne - out the small pedestrian gate on to Hearse road - across this on the lane down towards the estuary and anticlockwise around Malahide estuary to Malahide.

Wicklow to Greystones along the beach.(18 km)
Kilcoole to Greystones if the whole way is too far.(<8km)

[ACustomer]

Sallins-HAzlehatch is a great walk (8 miles). If you park the car in Sallinns village, walk to the Hatch and get the train back.

[James Shields]

If anyone finds themself in Drogheda, there's a nice walk along the Boyne to Oldbridge, which includes a section along the Boyne Canal as well as passing under the new motorway bridge. It's probably about 3-4 miles. Unfortunately when you get there there's not much to do but walk back the way you came.

Oh, and it's probably not such a good idea to do it on a summers evening lest you be set upon by ferocious man-eating midges.

[Mark Hennessy]

Have done Kilcock - Broombridge ( in stages !)
Robertstown - Obsberstown ( in stages)

One of my favourite walks is Bray - Greystones though, much prefer if there is hills involved.

[philip]

I walk from Westmanstown (first (intact) bridge west of Clonsilla) to Coolmine most days of the week. The path is fine apart from Coolmine-Porterstown which is uneven and slightly doodgy in the wet.

[craigybagel]

Balbriggan Skerries (7km) over the the viaduct, along the sea if the tides out, generally good footpath apart from a 1km section around Barnageera did it a few weeks ago nice way to spend the afternoon

[Thomas J Stamp]

From Thurles, Templemore to, erm, somewhere near my house along the railway at night. Quite popular i hear during the summer with a full moon.

[Donal Quinn]

colmd and craggybagel(?)

tides you say - how tidal are these walks - is it just at HT itself that there's water or are they only walkable for an hour or two arond LT?/

thanks all - a bit too fit and healthy to be locosexuals by the sound of it!!

[Colm Donoghue]

I'd say you'ld be able to walk around the inner harbor in Malahide almost all the time. It's not too tidal, heavy rain would impact it more. I'd say at worst 2 hours around the top of high water may be an issue.

I've never done this though. ymmv.
I'd reckon there'd be no hassle though.

[craigybagel]

Craigybagel:a long story you dont wanna know!

As for the walk id say about 2/3rds of the time the tides not a problem but you have to be careful as when it comes in it comes right up to the cliffs.Theres a footpath beside the road though on top of the cliff (more a steep slope than a cliff really) i used that last time as the tide was in all the way. Its not really sandy at the bottom a lot of it is rocky so unless youre feeling adventurous and youve got time on your hands its best staying on the road.