A Lovely Kinsale Walk

Fort on your right as you begin.

At the water's edge.

One of a few history notes along the way

Leaving the fort behind

Path rises in a few places

Furze and sky

The harbour

Used to call these soldiers!

A Lovely Kinsale Walk

There is a lovely seaside walk, by the harbour of Kinsale, that begins by Charles Fort  Face the entrance gate to the fort and the path begins over to your left. Just walk the path downhill, until you reach the water and then keep going, leaving the fort behind.

The path is a very popular one and is mainly a hard surface, mainly clean. But, after the rains, I encountered some biggish pools yesterday. No problem though, as stepping stones have been laid.

You get terrific views ahead, mainly to your right and of course straight across the harbour, towards Castle Park. Sometimes, the path veers in from the water and rises, reasonably steeply, and then there are the yellow flowers of the furze and the blue of the sky. Quite a lot of wild flowers here and more, particularly the foxglove, gearing up to bloom in June.

Little history lessons also on plaques along the way. The fort, the Armada and even Robinson Crusoe are featured in these one or two sentence info boards.

Not too many signs about the path itself and I’m not really sure how far one can go. We walked about 35 minutes out on Monday, passing the busy boatyard and a little group of water side houses before deciding to return back. On the way back you will get terrific views of the fort.

Did a bit of searching on the net but found that most of the info about walks coming from local Kinsale sites keep referring you to local commercial walking guides. Which is all very well. But I think basic info about local walks, and Kinsale is hardly the only town that the guides are tying up, should be made available to visitors who may not want a guide or who may not be able to afford one.

I did find this Google earth reference http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=http://www.geograph.ie/photo/2397963.kml&z=13 and here you may see the fort, the boatyard and the group of houses I referred to.