Day 30/31 26&27 July 2020 - To Ardglass and beyond

(Said in the voice of Mr Buzz Light-year)

So day 30 as mentioned was a rest day for me and I spent it in Newcastle with my parents and son Ethan.
Ethan kicked our asses at crazy golf and even beat me in a running race although I have an excuse 😉🙃. A wee Maud's ice-cream was had afterwards 🍦🍧😁.
Then we had a lovely meal in Maghera (Co.Down) and an early enough night as I needed my rest for the LAST week of walking.

Day 31 started with poor weather which cleared around lunchtime for us.
We all headed out to killough where I had finished on Saturday and Ethan and I walked the 5km or so to Ardglass were we met my parents and had some lunch in a wee cafe there.

Afterwards I set off alone to complete my wee dander. And so missing the craic provided by Ethan I headed for strangford town.
This took me onto a beach head for a good couple of kilometres which was a lovely wee walk even though at times the wind was blowing a gale!
The sun stayed out most of the time so at least the pictures look nice 😅.
I even passed a pile of people swimming in the sea!!

Coming back in from the beach head I cut over strangford direction using the back roads before heading into Castleward and again a lovely wee dander through forests on tracks and grit roads.

I then spent a couple of kilometres on a main road before diverging once again off and into what seemed like private land.

This took me past a lake and onto mucky paths skirting around raised fields bringing me out at a sort of bridge were people were parked, and in the water jet skiing.

It started to rain at this point and I took the opportunity to sit under a large tree, eat half a bagette and get me gortex on.

20 or so minutes later the rain had eased and I set off again around a sort of island that ended at a yacht club.

Now here the map tells me the land is linked to the other side via a land bridge but I'm not so sure and deliberate whether or not to head onto the bridge for fear of getting the 1Km or so over the bridge and then the way is blocked.
However the only other option is heading down to nearly Downpatrick and back again adding a ton of kilometres to my trek.

I risk it for a biscuit and a couple of fence's and sneaking about later I get to the other side of the island and what to I find.....

A lovely lovely sluice gate 😂😂. I could actually go over the gate if it was open or under (which I did) as it was closed.
The other side however brought it's own problems and now I'm stuck inside the water boards sluice site 🤦‍♂️. With 10ft fencing most of the way round I had to skirt out into the Lough a bit and came round the coast slightly and into someone's quite massive house.
Hoping they are watching TV I skirt their garden and jump into the next field.

Some more cows and fields later I hit the road and it's only a short dander to Delamont country park where I pitch up for the night in drizzling rain.

Not a bad wee day indeed.
Totals for the day were: 38km and and ascent of 583m.

Some more calculations and it looks like I may have only around 80km left.
I'll see what the weather is like the next couple of days but I may look at doing 40km each day for the next two days bringing me home for Wednesday evening. I was thinking it would be closer to Friday/Saturday but no point in hanging about if I can get the miles in!