Having had a number of gentle nights around the campfire in Annalong Wood, we had increasingly found ourselves gazing across the valley at Round Seefin, Long Seefin and Rocky Mountain thinking it looked like a great place for a night out. Santa had brought one of the kids a bivvy bag for Christmas so a gentle test seemed in order. The forecast was as good as we could expect in February, cool and clear with no wind or rain forecast, so myself and Matt planned a gentle introduction to bivvying on Rocky Mountain. The Mourne Wall drops down to the Annalong River, then up to Long Seefin passing by the upper slopes of Rocky Mountain on its way to Slieve Donard and makes the route nice and straight forward in any conditions.
Leaving the car park at Carrick Plant Hire we wandered up the lane to the Mourne Wall turning right and following it down to the river. The ground underfoot was pretty wet and it was hard going. The Annalong River is one of the few places where the Mourne Wall breaks – there’s no bridge, just a chain across the river to hold onto which making the crossing tough enough, especially with laden rucksacks. On the other side it’s a steep climb up through Annalong Wood where we had to cross the wall several times to avoid dense undergrowth or barbed wire fences. Eventually we broke out of the forest and headed on up to Long Seefin. There we turned left and continued to follow the wall until we were close to Spences River where we had a quick detour to refill water bottles.
Rocky Mountain from Long Seefin
Once at the foot of Rocky Mountain we had a debate about what to do next. Light was fading and it looked like a steep ascent. We decided we’d head towards the summit and see what happened but within a fairly short distance it became apparent that the mountain was aptly named being extremely rocky with no places we could find in the dark that we could comfortably camp at. There were several stone structures left from quarrying days and we wandered from one to the next trying to find one that seemed like it had some flat ground that might afford a decent nights sleep. Eventually we chose the best of the bunch – 3 shoulder high drystone walls with some nice rocks for sitting on and just enough room for 3 to sleep.
Hunger had set in to so we broke out the stoves and started dinner – steaks for me and Matt and the usual super noodles for the young’un. The views of the lights down towards the sea were awesome and in the clear air we could see occasional torches on the slopes of Binnian along with what looked like a campfire in Annalong Wood. At around 11 we unpacked out the bivvy bags and settled for the night.
We had elected to not bother with a tarp since there was no wind or rain forecast and in the confines of the roofless stone structure there wasn’t really room. The Northern Ireland Met Office has an excellent track record for accuracy, however, on this occasion it seems their prediction was a shade off and withing 30 minutes of settling down the rain started. It was chilly enough and no-one really wanted to start messing around with a tarp in the dark so we snuggled down into our bivvy bags and hoped for the best. The ground had also turned out to be much lumpier than it at first seemed so between that and the on/off rain it was hard to get any prolonged sleep. Still, it’s always nice to be warm in a sleeping bag enjoying the outdoors so we were fine!
In the morning we rose around 9am for a quick hot dog and coffee and a consult of the map. The slopes on both sides of the Annalong River hadn’t been the most enjoyable hike we’d ever had so we decided instead of retracing our steps we’d follow the wall onwards, then drop to Hares Castle walking back to the car up the Annalong Valley.
It only took a few hours and we spotted a load of great camp spots on the way back that we noted for future trips including a lovely deep pool that was just crying out to be played in on a sunny summers afternoon! It’s just a shame we didn’t take a single photo…
