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Donaghadee to Portaferry

1 1/2 day paddle from Donaghadee to Portaferry

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Points of Interest

Donaghadee, Ards Peninsula, Millisle, Ballyhalbert, Portavogie, Portaferry

Itinerary

Donaghadee to Cloughey is the caravan and cottage coast, proving that we do indeed like to be beside the sea. From Cloughey south to Ballyquintin Point and the Strangford Narrows is a less developed and more scenic area. This final section is a long one and there are opportunities to break the journey at various slipways, beaches and resting spots.  Ringbuoy Caravan Park in Cloughey (+44 (0) 4277 1418) is perhaps best placed for your overnight stop along this section. 

The Irish Sea can throw up very choppy paddling conditions when there’s a strong wind, especially a south-east blow. The tide is relatively strong along this coast with rates of 3 knots off islands and headlands – so working with the tide is important. Navigation too can add challenge to the journey as the
low-lying nature of the peninsula offers little to aid this.

Once a common sight on the Ards Peninsula, remains of windmills are visible on small hills here and there along this stretch of coastline. The flour-milling village of Millisle
developed around some of these and today it is a popular seaside resort. Woburn House, built in 1860, is a notable landmark just to the south.

The hinterland was long recognised for its fertile soils and is now intensively farmed with pastures and silage swards enclosed by trimmed hedges. It may seem a less dramatic landscape than the Antrim coast but it has a long and sometimes turbulent history, covering early Ecclesiastical sites, Viking raids, settlement by the castle-building
Normans and then the Scots. The small village of Ballyhalbert had a busy and strategic airfield during World War Two. Tourism and the holiday home business now dominate, but fishing and a busy cottage industry of linen embroidery supported many communities in the past. Fishing continues along the whole coast on a small scale, with a larger fleet of prawn and whitefish trawlers and some scallop dredgers at Portavogie. Canoeists should avoid the busy commercial
harbour here and opt instead for access at the beach just to the north.

The rocky reefs and islets known as pladdies are most numerous from Millisle to a little south of Portavogie and reoccur in the Strangford Narrows. They are more obvious
at low water, sometimes with seals hauled out and cormorants standing like black scarecrows, wings held out to dry. A few larger pladdies form offshore reefs and others are higher, creating islands closer to shore, some with nesting seabirds in spring and summer. Given the right conditions, paddlers can enjoy some interesting rockdodging through the pladdies. The gathering of dulse, a small reddish seaweed, is a popular occupation, and lines of this edible plant may be seen drying on the upper shore and on sea walls and piers.

Just beyond Ballyhalbert Harbour is Burr Point, the easternmost point of mainland Northern Ireland. Burial Island sits just off the point, separated by a narrow channel. South of the long sandy beach of Cloughey, the coast is different. Rounded hills or drumlins add variety to the scenery, and the shores are more convoluted, with numerous hidden bays that are worth exploring. Kearney is an attractive cluster of National Trust cottages – there’s a beach haul out by the most northerly one – and the Trust’s information building in one of the unoccupied dwellings provides a comprehensive history of the area, including the old south rock light visible offshore. Just around the corner to the south, Knockinelder Bay is noted for its ancient Silurian (420 million years old) rock formations. It’s impossible not to notice the romantic looking Quintin Castle (private) at the south end of this sweep of shore, originally an early seventeenth century tower house but rebuilt and enlarged to a castle in the 1870s.

Travelling south toward Ballyquinton Point, landing is possible at Port Kelly. This shore area is a good spot to find spring and summer seashore flowers and to spot the
colourful shelduck, various shorebirds and to hear the songs of warblers and the resident reed buntings.

The nature reserves at Ballyquintin Point and Bar Hall Bay are noted for seals, shorebirds and wildfowl. Terns, gannets, cormorants, shags and black guillemots come and go offshore and seek fish in the turbulence of the narrows. It is said approximately 350 million tonnes of seawater enter and exit Strangford Lough with the tide every six hours. This challenging neck of the fjord, which includes a tidal whirlpool, is not for the inexperienced canoeist, and the effect of the ebb tide is more challenging than the flood. The pros and cons of navigating this tide race are
already well covered in both the Strangford Lough and South East Coast Canoe Trails guides. Portaferry village is a picturesque and welcoming end to this long paddle, and is also well described in the above publications.

Getting to the Start

From the A2 which arcs through Bangor take the B21/Donaghadee Road east of Bangor for 3.5 miles. Continue along the A48/Newtownards Road for half a mile into Donaghadee. The access point is located in the centre of Donaghadee off Shore Street.