Walking

 The Mourne area of outstanding natural beauty is the ideal walking break destination. Whether you are a keen hill walker or just enjoy a gentle stroll, there are walks for every ability. There is a diverse landscape, which offers walks to mountains, drumlins, forests, lakes, rivers and beautiful sandy beaches.

      Slieve Donard, the highest mountain in Northern Ireland, towers 844m above Newcastle, a challenge on a bad day and a stretch of the legs on a good day. The super fit can scale the summit and back in 1hour and 20 minutes, the rest of us around 4 hours. A more realistic time is 3 hours up and 2 hours down. (This is not a tough climb there is a path most of the way) there are less challenging walks available ask the owner who has been on top of most of the mountains on a regular bases and is always willing to help.

Guided upland and lowland walks are available and there are a number of pre-mapped routes with route cards available on loan from Colm.

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The Heritage Trail.

Newcastle and County Down is steeped in history: The Heritage Trail is well worth the time to explore, there are 12th and 13th century Anglo-Norman castles, Churches and round Towers, Passage burial caves, Dolmens, Follies, Cashels, Souterrains and The St Patrick's Trail, or ride the last Steem train in County Down all within a 12 mile radius. Historic books and leaflets on the Heritage trail and St Patrick are available from our library. 



Cycling (Bike Hire from Amble In B&B)

The Mournes is an ideal cycling destination as it has terrain to suit all types of cyclists, from challenging mountain climbs to flat and gently rolling hills of the lowland coastal planes.

There are seven local sign posted Cycle Trails for you to follow each with varying degrees of difficulty and length.

Mountain Bikers have their own dedicated off-road trail at Moneyscalp in the Mournes

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Horse Riding: Choose a Horseback Riding Style

Enjoy gentle treks through forest glens, a pleasant canter by the waters edge of the Irish Sea or an exhilarating gallop along the sands; We can arrange a “Western Style” day out in the Mournes or along the shore. All levels of riders are catered for, whether it's your first time or you're an experienced rider, there are all degrees of trekking available with horses and ponies to suit everyone.

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Fishing: Coarse, Game and Sea fishing all available locally.

For their area the Mournes boast an exceptional number of streams, now spilling and splashing in exuberance down stony cascades, now winding with deep clear stillness across peaty mountain terraces, joining with each other and then with others, gathering the waters from neighboring hillsides as they grow to riverhood.

Crystal water and crystal rock, together shaping landscape; the streams sparkling in eternal youth as the mountains grow smooth and sage. Few places in the mountains are far from the sounds of the waters splashing down their stony courses, drumming into deep pools or gurgling unseen through the tunnels they carve through the peat. The streams are guides too; follow them up their busy ways and they can reveal some of the most exquisite secret places of the mountains, magic moss-fringed pools in many-hued rock, silver cascades in purple heather, never to be seen by the walker on the path.

The busy streams fill some ten rivers that through the valleys they themselves helped shape, drain the mountains, coiling away, twisted shining ribbons. Some like the lovely Shimna or Spence’s River, have hardly bid the hills goodbye before they enter the sea, others ramble through miles of farmland, ducking under tracks and roadways, paying their respects to the fields and homesteads that greet them on their way. The longest, the River Bann, is born on the reedy slopes of Slieve Muck and takes their peat-filtered waters more than 100 miles to Ireland’s northern coast, but most of the rain that washes Mourne returns to the ocean within sight of the hillsides on which it fell.

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