Castlewellan Lake

This was an important weekend. 30 years ago, almost to the day, we were married. Goodness it seems so long ago and since then a whole generation has disappeared and another arrived. I am not even sure I can recognize myself from that long ago.

Anyway, to celebrate we headed off for a very long-weekend in Castlewellan laden with gifts to be consumed on Sunday and best wishes to be relished. It took us a while to get organised and with various delays, including the boys calling over with gifts, eventually we set off in the late afternoon. The weather was already much warmer than it had been the weekend before.

The touring site was quite busy with folk still here from Easter; many would depart on the Sunday leaving only the earnest and ourselves. The weather was indeed glorious with undeniable heat even this late in the evening.

On Saturday, we began with a trip into the farmyard. After Fermanagh, Pauline had a notion to rent a canoe so we arranged a rental for Sunday morning. We also got directions to a bike shop where Pauline could get replacement pedals.

This was our second trip, away from the park into the mountains along country roads. The views over the hills into this part of the Mournes, over to Slieve Donard and the rest and down to the sea at St. John's Point and Dundrum were all amazing. We could even see what must have been the Isle of Man above St. John's lighthouse. The warmth in the air, the country smells and the general silence all reminded me of the good times in Fintona. I for one could be easily persuaded of a move to the country again.

Third trip now back around the lake for our usual jaunt and returning through the Arboretum. Its seems unreal that it was only a couple of weeks since we were last here. Shrubs and trees are in bloom all over the place: purples and whites and reds and pinks floating in the sunshine to a chorus of spring bird-song. Of all the blooms, a pale pink magnolia virtually explodes with colour. A stonger-pink one down by the Sequoia was just coming into bloom, and a smaller proper white flowered magnolia had been and gone but this very tall tree was festooned with enormous magnolia and pink flowers. It was tucked away in the garden so it was rather difficult to get close to but it virtually shouted with spring colour and vigour over the heads of everything else.

On Sunday we set off on our lakeland adventure. Up to the farmyard to get our life-preservers and then down to lakeside where we carried a 15' Canadian-style canoe into the water. We were able to launch without getting wet, only with the help of one of the Centre's leaders. Off we went.

This boat was very difficult to steer. Pauline in the front and me in the rear; we were paddling at different rates and strength of stroke. The boat was yawing wildly and only generally heading in the direction we wanted to go. It took some time till we managed to get better control over steering but it remained pretty poor except for one patch as we were coming up the lake and got into a rhythm and for a time we kept the canoe going in a near-perfect straight-line.

We gradually crept anti-clockwise round the  lake keeping quite close in-shore as we struggled with the dynamics of the boat. Our destination was the larger of a pair of islands in the north of the lake. The smaller, we were told, hosted otters and was out of bounds (we never saw any of the shy creatures). The larger could be landed on. So we carefully manoeuvred our craft in amongst the tree branches dangling into the lake, to somewhere that looked relatively easy to land. Tieing up fore and aft, the boat steady, Pauline stood and with a deft piece of footwork managed to fall out of the boat into very cold but fortunately shallow water. I took especial care to make sure I did not end up in the drink myself.

While P rearranged herself, I searched the island for a corner the sun was able to get through to and we would have some warmth to help P dry off. But the island was encrusted with wild, tangled trees and it was a major task just to get through them. By now there was enough heat in the day that we could share my dry clothes. And so we were ready to take to the water again.

We paddled down to the far end of the lake where there was something resembling a beach and with considerable messing about I was just about able to scramble ashore but with a number of hefty knocks against granite boulders. We gave up on that idea and just set off again spending the rest of the morning paddling around and across the lake. It was wonderful to sit in the middle of the water just looking about at the stillness. The air was so still and heavy voices carried very far so it was possible to listen in on the chatter of the fishermen on the edges of the lake, and the ramblings of joggers and couples circuiting the lake.

It was a wonderful experience and while we were still high on the wonderment of it all, we grounded the canoe on a sandy stretch and hauled it out of the water, still managing to keep ourselves otherwise dry. By now we are convinced we will have to get some sort of a boat. The day before we had seen an inflatable kayak resting by the lake. Turned out this was being photographed for sale on Ebay; we discovered this when we finally got hold of the girl selling a 2-man Kayak on Gumtree. So our hunt for a kayak begins.

We dined in Hilllyard House, or rather had high-tea - Sunday is not a good time for fine-dining unfortunately, to celebrate our anniversary and most of the chat was about getting a boat and what we could do. The rest of the trip we spent recovering from our extertions fortunately in wonderful warm weather.