Distance: 2.89km

Start/End Point: Clybaun Hotel

Surface:

Footpaths, gravel trail and unpaved trail. Unpaved trail section only is not accessible except on foot and is challenging. Gravel trail is steep. Footpaths on Ballymoneen Road are also steep and not continuous.

Route:
From Clybaun Hotel where there are toilets, bike parking, car parking and a bus stop, head up Clybaun Road and turn left at entrance to Ard Fraoigh. Walk through to the end of this leafy estate and you see a trailhead with a bollard. Follow this steep narrow path up through the wildflowers and greenery and you are rewarded with a panorama of the city and the hills of Clare. You can return back the same way here or you can continue on an unpaved trail. This is an old buaile (cattle path) with stone walls and delicate bog flowers. It is marked as a potential greenway which could serve the new developments growing up around it. Veer left very soon along the trail. In summer the trail is hard to follow amongst the six foot ferns! You will come to a rock clearing, with bog heather and orchids amongst the aiteann (furze). Admire the city from here and then follow a narrow trail back through the Ard na Gaoithe estate and out onto the Ballymoneen Road. You can follow the steep road down here to the Western Distributor Road, enjoying the elevated views of Galway Bay, and then turn left to follow the Western Distributor Road back to the Clybaun Hotel. There is new hedgerow along this road as road reservation which is developing its own ecological corridor.

 

Click here to access the MapMyWalk trail map.

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