Tawin island
Tawin island is connected to the mainland by a bridge. The bridge is a single span, and a tidal channel flows under it. I guess the flow alternates direction with the tide.
I set out from Prospect pier along the coast. I arrived at the Northern end of this tidal channel at about 10:30 on Saturday 8 June 2013. That was just over an hour before the published time for low tide in Galway Bay.
From 'Creggauns', there is a narrow spit built up to a height of about 4 meters, by large rocks in some places, and by concrete blocks in others. It looked to me like some possibly ancient defence against tidal erosion, which was repaired with the concrete blocks more recently.
The tidal channel is split around a tiny island [see the map linked below], so I had to wade twice - once to get on to the island and again to get from there on to Tawin island. Both of these crossings were very easy - the greatest depth was about 1 foot, so Robin (the dog) had to swim a little. The current was just strong enough that Robin had trouble swimming against it, but it didn't cause me any difficulty.
http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,532419,719776,7,0
The old maps have an interesting placename here: Ballaghbristy; and the same placename appears at Ballaghbristy Point, at the Sourthern end of the same tidal channel. It means 'broken pass' or 'broken way', And I feel like this tells us something about how the landscape has changed over time.
Leaving Ballaghbristy, we continued along the shoreline, with a salt-marsh to the left. This was an unreal-looking carpet of bright pink flowers.
Reached Kilcolgan point a little before noon. On this hot sunny day, the panoramic view from here was weightily impressive. Bright coloured buildings of Salthill to the north, and the massive burren to the south bloomed loudly with green grass.
I had guzzled my litre of water in the first half an hour of the expedition, and by this time I was getting dehydrated. It seemed that Robin was overheating too, so from this point on, I looked for a good exit point. We left the coastline a little before Ballaghbristy point, and crossed through two empty fields to get up to the national school.
From here we followed the road fairly directly back to Prospect Pier.
On reaching the national school, I was a little disappointed to see some newish signs proclaiming "Private property, no trespassing", for what I thought was commonage from previous visits.
I set out from Prospect pier along the coast. I arrived at the Northern end of this tidal channel at about 10:30 on Saturday 8 June 2013. That was just over an hour before the published time for low tide in Galway Bay.
From 'Creggauns', there is a narrow spit built up to a height of about 4 meters, by large rocks in some places, and by concrete blocks in others. It looked to me like some possibly ancient defence against tidal erosion, which was repaired with the concrete blocks more recently.
The tidal channel is split around a tiny island [see the map linked below], so I had to wade twice - once to get on to the island and again to get from there on to Tawin island. Both of these crossings were very easy - the greatest depth was about 1 foot, so Robin (the dog) had to swim a little. The current was just strong enough that Robin had trouble swimming against it, but it didn't cause me any difficulty.
http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,532419,719776,7,0
The old maps have an interesting placename here: Ballaghbristy; and the same placename appears at Ballaghbristy Point, at the Sourthern end of the same tidal channel. It means 'broken pass' or 'broken way', And I feel like this tells us something about how the landscape has changed over time.
Leaving Ballaghbristy, we continued along the shoreline, with a salt-marsh to the left. This was an unreal-looking carpet of bright pink flowers.
Reached Kilcolgan point a little before noon. On this hot sunny day, the panoramic view from here was weightily impressive. Bright coloured buildings of Salthill to the north, and the massive burren to the south bloomed loudly with green grass.
I had guzzled my litre of water in the first half an hour of the expedition, and by this time I was getting dehydrated. It seemed that Robin was overheating too, so from this point on, I looked for a good exit point. We left the coastline a little before Ballaghbristy point, and crossed through two empty fields to get up to the national school.
From here we followed the road fairly directly back to Prospect Pier.
On reaching the national school, I was a little disappointed to see some newish signs proclaiming "Private property, no trespassing", for what I thought was commonage from previous visits.