Northern Ireland Outdoors Forum - Hiking, camping and more
General => General Chat => Topic started by: t18con on November 03, 2013
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Walked the Devil's coachroad today, parking at Carrick Little and walked up by summiting Lamagan first, returning by Annalong valley, parallel to the river.
Anyhow to the point...... walking up the lane itself, got passed by two quads (not farmers) and about a minute later a farmer in a land rover. I had wondered was he after the two guys on the quads. the farmer turned at the sty, I assume as he wasn't going to catch the guys on the quads. We walked on up wondering where the hell the quads had gone. They made it up to the Binnian/Lamagan saddle , cutting the living daylights out of the new path spinning the wheels the whole way up. Where the path wasn't suitable, they drove up the riverbed or across the heather, again spinning wheels etc.
Am I being selfish getting angry?? Do we all want the Mournes to ourselves??? They didn't have number plates btw or I would have made a note of them. Are they even breaking the law? I had seen scrambler tracks heading up from Fofanny before, but this was in a different league.
To top it all off, there was 4 jeeps came up to the quarry as well. to give them the benefit of the doubt, they MIGHT have been scattering ashes or something. They were some distance behind us so it was hard to tell.
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If they have damaged the path then I reckon Mourne Heritage Trust would be very interested. http://www.mournelive.com/contactus/index.asp
Would be a shame to see months of hard graft by volunteers destroyed in seconds :( Not sure as to the legality of driving up there. I once met a guy on a scrambler who thought he was going up Commedagh until I kindly asked him to reconsider. But if they were farmers tending to their livestock then they may well have every right to be up there.
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no definitely NOT farmers, one had racing overalls and a helmet on. the other was dressed more like a farmer. i'm fairly sure the guy in the landrover was chasing them.
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No you are definitely not being selfish, that winds me up..
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emailed the heritage trust who seem to have moved to Newcastle. not got a reply. to be honest, don't think they've broken any laws though.