Down to The Cove

One of my favourite loop walks on the Sheeps head is The Crimea, the path passes by a hamlet of ruined cottages and old field systems. Further on mine shafts and the roofless ruins of the miners cottages. These men were  from Cornwall and experienced at mining for copper, local people were employed to but paid in food, this was at the height of the famine. The mine was only open for a year and ran at a loss. The road that was built to this remote spot was virtually washed away by a flash flood on Monday night, please see my extra images. Leaving the wild north side behind with it's spectacular views of Bantry Bay and the Beara peninsula, we climbed the cliffs and dropped down over the ridge to the cove, looking beautiful today in the sunshine but a place of much tragedy, two young men were swept off the shore here in the storms of February 2014 and in 1979 the writer JG Farrel was fishing here and slipped of the rocks and drowned. The last bit of the walk is on the road but as you can see from my extra image that's pretty pleasant too!