You want green, I've got green!
Loved your redwoods, by the way.
It's axiomatic that the greenest place in the world is Ireland; so it figures that if you want green in the UK, you should come to Northern Ireland. I'm not a great walker, but if you ride I'll borrow a spare horse and we'll take the farm lane that passes my house and wanders off into the countryside. Before we leave, though, look east - if the conditions are right, there's a gap through the hills that lets you see all the way across the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man.
This is drumlin country: little rounded hillocks left by the retreating glaciers that carved out Strangford Lough on our right. You're always either climbing a hill or descending one - another good reason I don't walk much! But as we get to the top of the first drumlin, look right - across Strangford Lough and the Quoile estuary to the Mountains of Mourne, still carrying the last of the winter snow like old ladies in mantillas. Now turn in the saddle and look the other way. The Irish Sea spreads beneath you, from the Isle of Man in the south to the Kintyre peninsula of Scotland in the north. In particular light conditions you can see Ailsa Craig, the rock off the Ayrshire coast which provides the granite for all the best curling stones.
Now the lane drops steeply and the view vanishes; but half a mile on it climbs again and turns to the left, so now we have the spectacle of the Strangford Narrows opening up before us. Most of the water in the lough rushes in and out through a half-mile channel twice a day. If we went to Portaferry, at the narrowest point, we could watch the local sailing club racing backwards - because the tide runs faster than the boats can sail.
Another half mile or so and we'll peel off to the left, onto an even less-travelled lane, that curls like a dying snake among fields of black-and-white cows and golden (in season) corn. There's a little grassy hill here and if you're game we'll canter up it - the horses know to slow down at the top, because we can't go much further. But we don't really need to: you've already seen some of the sweetest country around, and now it's spring the hawthorn is lacing it like a bride.
I hope you enjoyed your visit, and will come again soon.
