Darby's Bed Loop

This is a very nice shortish trial that really is worth a visit. The best place to park is just outside Galbally at a community centre which has a distinctive map mural of the local area painted along the side. From here it is only a very short walk along the road until you come to a stile where you cross on to the trail proper. It would appear that some work has been carried out recently to improve the path of the trek. It looked to me that some new way marked posts had been added but had no markings put on them yet! Be careful not to take this blank post for meaning that you should take that turn - you should not. Follow the main path and you will come across posts that are marked and lead you in the right direction. Although this trek is through the usual alpine plantations it ascends steeply up one side of a valley and you have excellent views of everything below. As it was a summers day when I went there were many beautiful wild flowers and everything smelled wonderful. There were large amounts of blackberries ripening on their bushes so this will be a nice walk for a picnic in another few weeks. The real treat on this track is the ancient burial place that the walk is named after. The views from this site are pretty spectacular stretching far out over the countryside. The ancient megalithic graves are really interesting and are worth exploring for a while. After this point the path is more difficult and overgrown in places, although you have the option of returning to the main forest path and walking along that as it eventually joins back with the marked path (this is easily worked out on the map) This is a very family friendly route and we passed several families with young children while we were on the walk. This walk is very accessible for all levels of walkers and has some great views and of course some excellent ancient Irish history - well worth a visit!