Mourne Geo Tours

28/07/2024

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/qxsmv10bx7/missing-in-the-wild-and-praying-for-survival

I first posted this story on the Tory Bush Cottages page but I thought it might also be of interest to readers of the Mourne Geo Tours page so here it is!!

I was attracted to this story because of the similarities with that of Dr Michael Mosley, a doctor going for a solo walk in a hostile environment, and the Doctor in this case Dr John Pike references Michael Mosley and says,

"There was an awful lot of criticism of Michael Mosley for going out for a walk without his mobile phone, for example, and in extreme heat. And I thought, ‘You guys give the man a break’. It's very, very easy to be wise after the event. He's obviously a highly intelligent man. You know, if he can't get it right, what hope is there for anyone? And yet it just happens to people.” .

It is worth reading the story to learn of the coincidences that lead to a successful outcome in this case. It is also useful to consider Dr John Pikes advice to anyone considering a solo walk.

"John's advice to fellow hikers now? "Leave a message in the front of your car on your dashboard saying where you've gone walking, as well as having told somebody... how long the walk is likely to last," he said.

Have another method of navigation... I would strongly recommend to people having a GPS device with a full scale map of the area that you're walking in."

And one of the rescuers added: "Just go with orange [clothing]. You look a little bit louder down the high street, but you're easy to find."

My personal advice, and I know its not always possible is to go walking with a companion, and to check out our own Mourne Mountain Rescue Team for safety advice on their website at https://www.mournemrt.org/mountain-safety/ .

When on the website consider a donation to MMRT not only for their everyday operational expenses but also their fundraising activities towards building a new base at the foot of the Mournes in Newcastle.

Mountain Safety A guide to safe adventures in the mountains... The Mourne Mountains are undoubtedly an awesome place, but as with all in mountainous regions, the factors that make them exhilarating are also those that pose the most risk. If you don’t take proper care, through careful planning, inc...

18/04/2024

The weather is looking really good for the weekend, perhaps spring has sprung at last, which is timely as we launch the first ever Mourne Gullion Strangford Outdoor Spring Festival, check out the video below, Mourne Geo Tours is in there somewhere and visit all the other activity providers by clicking on Visit Mourne

I have to hand it to my colleagues in the outdoor activity and experience sector and our Council for pulling this all together, this is a really great initiative, and hope it is the first of many Outdoor Spring Festivals.

16/04/2024

This is a post I put up yesterday on my other page for Tory Bush Cottages, our self catering holiday business, only when it was up did I realise it was pertinent to Mourne Geo Tours, especially as these remaining tree stumps are pointed out on my tours of Tollymore, where we discuss my aspiration that some institution might conduct a dendrological study to link these very trees with the remanent in Canada, i.e. a comparison of the tree rings.

Talking of tours and events, I am hosting a 'Search for Mourne's Gold this Saturday, check out,

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/searching-for-gold-in-the-mournes-tickets-84712337787

and for other events

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=861617642669052&set=gm.398201603070076

and Visit Mourne for more details.

"Today the 15th of April is the 112th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and by coincidence we had a guest from Australia who left on Friday, and he told me an interesting Titanic related story encountered on his travels around the world.
One of the places he visited was Fairview Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia where there are one hundred and twenty one victims of the sinking of the Titanic buried, more than at any other site in the world. There are another twenty-nine Titanic victims buried elsewhere in Halifax; nineteen in the Roman Catholic Mount Olivet Cemetery and ten in the Jewish Baron de Hirsch Cemetery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairview_Lawn_Cemetery
But what is interesting about the 10 bodies buried in the Jewish cemetery, 8 were unidentified and of the two that were identified both were later discovered not to be Jewish. One of these was Frederick Wormald a ships steward who turned out to be Church of England, and the other Louis M Hoffman had a much more interesting back story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Baron_de_Hirsch_Cemetery

Louis Hoffman was really, Michel Navratil, a tailor and Slovak immigrant to France, who married Marcella Caretto an Italian, and they lived in Nice in France. They had two sons Michel Jr. born 1908 and Edmond born 1910. The marriage was soon in trouble and the couple separated with the boys being put in care until custody could be decided. Michel Sr had permission to take the boys out of care for Easter Monday 1912, but he did not return them at the end of the day. Fearing that he may lose the boys and that he was about to be served with a bankruptcy notice, Michel decided to emigrate to the United States, taking the boys with him. He bought White Star Line tickets in Monte Carlo and travelled to Southampton and boarded the Titanic using a stolen passport in the name of Louis M Hoffman.
After the Titanic struck the Iceberg Marcel and another man placed the boys Michel and Edmond in Collapsible D, the last lifeboat successfully launched from the ship that night. Michel Jr aged only 3 at the time lived until 2001 and was one of the last survivors of the Titanic to die. ( the last was Millvina Dean who died in 2009 https://www.biography.com/historical-figure/millvina-dean )
Michel Sr died in the sinking, and his body was recovered by the rescue ship, Mackay-Bennett, and because of his assumed Jewish surname, he was buried erroneously in the Baron de Hirsch Jewish Cemetery.
To round the story out, the children who could speak no English were eventually re-united with their mother after a newspaper publicity campaign and she took them back to France.

Now for the local connection, also in Nova Scotia is a piece of Tollymore Oak, as seen in the image attached to this post. The image is part of the Grand staircase of the Titanic that was picked up by one of the rescue/recovery ships and brought back to Halifax, it is now held in the Maritime Museum of Nova Scotia which houses as they say, “In addition to a Titanic deck chair, there are over 50 objects including artefacts (collected as flotsam at the time of the great ship’s sinking) and historic photographs.”

https://maritimemuseum.novascotia.ca/fr/what-see-do/titanic-unsinkable-ship-and-halifax

09/04/2024

I am not sure but I think it is going to be the first ever Outdoor Spring Festival in our beautiful Mourne Gullion Strangford Geopark, check out this link.

https://www.facebook.com/100064624724646/posts/854087623422054/?rdid=uwXYlk6TfCWOXRzj

I am part of the festival and will write a little about the activity I am providing and some of the others later, right now, with a gap in the rain, I am heading out to plant some willow cuttings, it is a little late in the year as the willow is in bud and about to burst into leave but it is a remarkably hardy plant.

Actually it is because of the rain that I am planting the willow, the ground is so permanently saturated that most other tree species are dying and I am having to replace them.

Check out this link for a bit more info on growing willow,

https://www.yorkshirewillow.co.uk/willow-planting-and-maintenance

ps Did you know that the active ingredient of Aspirin, Acetylsalicylic Acid, was based on a pain relieving chemical found in Willow Bark. Willow's latin family or Genus name is Salix with 350 different species, see what they did there.

Experience an adventure of a lifetime this April at the Mourne Gullion Strangford Outdoor Spring Festival. 🚵⛰️ 🌊 🌳

Discover the thrill of our mountains, lakes, and ancient forests on a guided tour. Immerse yourself in the tranquil beauty of our land and coastline on a voyage of discovery. Step into nature and soak up its bounty on a unique mindful experience.
Whatever your taste for adventure, join us for the day or make a short break of it. Book now.

📌 Mourne Gullion Strangford Outdoor Spring Festival
📅 20 April 2024
📍Mourne Gullion Strangford Geopark

🔗 https://www.visitmournemountains.co.uk/whats-on/outdoor-spring-festival

16/03/2024

15/02/2024

This is a copy of a post from my original Tory Bush Cottages page where I was asking readers to check out this new Geo Tours page, and I thought it worth posting here as well as it is on a geological theme.

" I read somewhere recently that Stephen Spielberg has described Silver Strand beach in Donegal as the best beach on the planet!

Well I say, as Paul McCartney once said, “Ringo is not the best drummer in the World, he’s not even the best drummer in the Beatles”, has Steven Spielberg not been to Northern Ireland, think of our great beaches we have, the 7 miles of Magilligan Strand, and our own Tyrella and Murlough beaches.

I did a search on the best beaches in Ireland and of the 10 listed in Lonely Planet all were in Southern Ireland, most on the West Coast apart from Killiney Strand in County Dublin. They go on to explain this by saying
“The best beaches invariably are on the wild western coastlines, where the occasionally angry waters of the Atlantic might not at first glance seem all that inviting. But on a sunny summer’s day, you can run your hands through the impossibly soft sands and imagine yourself a fair bit closer to the equator.”

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/best-beaches-ireland

I had to a further check to see if the coastline they were alluding to was to the Irish Republic only or the Island of Ireland and it turns out to be the latter.

However, ‘Lonely Planet’ do go on to redeem themselves in a separate article on 7 great beaches near Belfast, in which Murlough and Tyrella do rate highly.

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/arti.../best-beaches-in-belfast

Lonely Planet is one of the world’s leading travel guidebook publishers, founded in Australia in 1973, by Maureen and Tony Wheeler, the company has printed over 150 million books. Would you believe it, Maureen Wheeler was born in Belfast!

What are beaches, strictly they are rocks in transition, for example if you walk along the Shimna river in Tollymore, you will see little inlets along the banks full of a rough sand, this sand was once part of the granite of the Mournes that has been eroded by various means and is now on its way to the beach at Newcastle, eventually the sand will settle at the bottom of seas and over very long times will build up and be compressed to form another rock called Sandstone. This is all part of the Rock Cycle see the final image in this post.

The other images are firstly Silver Strand, in Donegal then Murlough and finally Tyrella. Got to hand it to Mr Spielberg in terms of picturesqueness he is probably got it right about Silver Strand. Or as a friend of mine would say in terms of 'picture-skew-ness'."

10/02/2024

UNESCO has named the Mourne Gullion Strangford region as the UK’s newest Global Geopark, as of May 2023, in tribute to its geological past and culturally rich present. The Geopark includes three areas of natural beauty: the Ring of Gullion, the Mourne mountains with the 850-metre peak of Slieve Donard, and wildlife-rich Strangford Lough, the UK’s largest coastal lough.

Now, what is a Geopark, well they are, according to the British Geological Survey, “areas with internationally important rocks and landscapes, all of which are managed responsibly for conservation, education, and sustainable development. Whilst geology may be their foundation, UNESCO Global Geoparks build upon it by bringing together other aspects of heritage such as archaeology, history, culture, and biodiversity. All of this is achieved in collaboration with local people to make UNESCO Global Geoparks better places to work, live and visit.”

And what is (or are) Mourne Geo Tours, well they are a series of guided tours, activities and experiences to places of interest in the Geopark, usually based on the Geology of the area, such as a Tour Of Castlewellan, called “Between a rock and a hard place", reflecting its location between the relatively young, 56 million year old Mournes Mountains and the much older, 410 million years old, Newry/Slieve Croob Igneous Complex. Another activity is to go look for Gold in the Mournes, gold that may have been the raw material for all the Gold artefacts Ireland is famous for.