
Type of walk: Canal
Distance: 5.5km
Time: 4 – 5.30 pm

Scenery: Elevated trail that takes you over the eye popping green countryside along flat water reflecting the skies and train-tracks carrying the Dublin – Sligo commuting pack.
Walking surfaces: Small quiet road, canal towpath, grassy tracks and back roads.

Animals: Cows, sheep, horses, rabbits, ducks, and fish. This time of the year is bug heaven. The canal was like a superhighway for damselflies of the bluest colours hunting each other and giant dragonflies that fluttered about like small birds drunk on a sunny afternoon.

Humans: This is a popular ramble and is part of the new Greenway so it has lots of walkers and cyclists like the pair of tandem cyclists who looked like they had pedalled the whole way from Galway. There were plenty of dogs on leads and a hunting dog who ran along nose down like he was looking for escaped convicts. A few people with Lidl fishing rods were living the lockdown dream while cool Kids cooled off by jumping into the water at the Boyne Dock.
Traffic: Two cars on the road. One on the towpath manned by a man pumping water from the Boyne into the canal.

Negatives: Not so many places to stop and sit.
Positives: The fantastically named Blackshade Bridge was enough to make me feel good.
Memorable: The CEO got us “lost” and ended up straying through a well-maintained farm estate with rabbits everywhere. The owners were pleasant once we told them that we were just out rambling.
There was a shoe sculpture at the Boyne Dock to mark the fact that this route was used by hundreds to walk from the West during the 1840s in the hope of getting on a boat away from the Famine.

Ribbontail Paddlers are based at the Boyne Dock and they are probably the only kayak club in the world named after the Ribbonmen, a 19th century agrarian secret society.
Looking at the map later I discovered that we unknowingly crossed the county line into Kildare, but we made it back unscathed.
Score: 7.5/10 – the extra .5 for not getting arrested by landowners which is always embarrassing.
