BETWEEN BALLINTOY AND WHITEPARK BAY

A walk between Ballintoy and Whitepark Bay or vice versa will take you along an ancient pathway trodden since man first set foot here some 10,000 years ago. The bay in geological terms is known as a 'raised beach',  the ocean would have once washed into the curved cliff face and both Portbraddon and Ballintoy harbour would have been submerged. As the ice age came to a close the land mass gradually rose leaving us with this exceptional bay. The ancient sand dune system is rich in flora and fauna, it also contains several carbon dated Neolithic sites and arrow heads are occasionally found by the observant walker. Along the shoreline, if your lucky, you can still find the odd fossilized ammonites or brachiopods washed out of the layer of Jurassic clay which underlies the extreme low tide zone. In the dune system there is also an ancient mound known as a Tumulus which may be a burial site, another word for Tumulus would be Si  - in Irish mythology the fairies are said to have been the people of the Si. One prominent volcanic stack is aptly named the 'Elephant Rock'. As a young boy I was told by an uncle that it was an elephant which had the misfortune to be caught as it tried to flee from an erupting volcano - it certainly fired my imagination to the wonderful shapes and rock outcrops that surround the north Antrim coast. Close to the elephant rock is a nicely eroded limestone arch which at high tide is surrounded by water, overlooking these rocks is a cave which when excavated by archeologists revealed Iron Age artifacts. The whole area round to Ballintoy has an amazing number of basalt islet and is quite unique, it is also one of the finest locations to view the power of Atlantic storms as they pound into the natural defences that protect Ballintoy harbour. 

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