River side Walk.

Today the sun came out! it glowed orange through the mist that shrouded the river in the valley. Towards midday it had burnt away all but the most persistent of it, that stuck to the river banks obscuring all behind with nature's own smoke screen. I started my walk along an ancient track that traversed the lower earth walls of the 'Lios' (fort) that the town is named after. It made it's way down to the banks of the river and by the time I got to the waters edge the last of the mist was steaming from the vegetation. Across the way two swans made their way up stream against the current, their heads bobbing up and down like an unfit cyclist coming up against an incline. The current surged against their slender bodies forming a wave that would every now and then break over their downy backs as they made their slow and purposeful way towards a quiet tributary and away from the relentless pull of the river.

All along the banks were signs of the resent floods and mans impact on nature, plastic bags hung in trees and shrubs caught on briar or blackthorn like Grey shrike offerings. Uprooted grass and shrub formed the woven warp and weft of an intricate tapestry that hung on barbed wire and wrapped intricately around the lower branches and stems of willow that bent into the breeze of the day, as plastic bottles lie half submerged, suspended, caught like fish in pools left by the receding water of the floods.
I stood for a while to listen, above the noise of the traffic coming from the road on the northern banks, I could make out the familiar 'tick-ick-ick-ick' of a robin that made up the first of three such encounters on this walk as I passed from ones territory into the next. Each one seemed to meet me at his boarder, then hand over the responsibility of escorting me onto the next, and so on, and so on!

The ancient path passes from open marsh and willow into steep sided wood and becomes dark and foreboding, ancient trees cling to the almost shear bed rock laid down and chiseled out by the last great ice age. The path hear was used by the first Christian settlers as a means to their fishing grounds, and forms a link with the ancient settlement and the monasteries that were formed hear by St. Carthage. The water of the river lies deep and malevolent hear, it swirls in black unseen currents around the submerged forrest of fallen trees. Time seems to work differently in this dark place, we pass through it largely unnoticed by the river or trees, for they are working to a different pace measured in millennia. The landscape hear has seen man come, and will know doubt see us go, as the dark waters continue their way downstream carving out new channels. As I made my way out of the wood and back into the marsh I looked up to see the vapor trail of a plane mirroring the bend in the river, as it made it's way to america, a migration of humans. The marsh is made up of straw colored reeds that have been laid low by the flood water, you can see the patterns of flow that the water took as it surged over the land. Every now and then a run off had formed mud channels deep into the flood plain. It was in one of these that I saw the tracks of an otter who had recently made his way into one of the many pools left high and stranded. I have often seen the otters here their graceful elegance, matched only by there skill at fishing. Sadly though their numbers are dwindling again due too the netting of salmon and sea trout that takes place each year at the confluence of the river and sea, where the fresh water of the mountains and valleys mix and mingle with the salt of the estuary. This effectively stops the natural migration of the spawning fish upstream and has a hugh impact on the fish numbers. Ironically the otters who are so greatly effected by this man made problem, have an unlikely alliey in the local fishermen who are fighting for a ban on netting. My walk was nearing it's end, the path once again winds it's way up into the steep sided woods as it makes it's way to the ramparts of the castle, who's walls stand on a sharp vertical bastion of rock over the water. The sight of which was chosen to house the first Monastery in the area, however after three raids by the Vikings the Monastery and town had to defend it's self and built fortifications. The castle today bares no resemblance to the old, and is a 18th century rebuild.   Where the marshland meets this path is an old stone wall with a turn style gate made of iron. this marks the start of a walk named after one of the daughters of the owners of the castle who liked to open up trails in the lands that belonged to her father. Most of these trails have been lost to nature, but this one is maintained by the local fishermen and town council and is a favorite for dog walkers or tourists. The later rarely venture out into the more rugged and wild of the marshland and miss out on a land largely untouched by modern man.