There were a few more animals on the fields now. I had to cross a large field with four cows in it - midway across I realised they were bullocks. Just inquisitive, but the four of them trotting towards me quickened my heart for a moment. I also had to pass through a dark, silent half-mature pine forest, bent double to avoid my face being whipped, tracing along in parallel to the old line's route. Then a 10-foot drop on the other side into a drainage ditch. At times, the track was completely ploughed and invisible except for the slight reduction in rushes indicating the land was marginally drier. Saw another pheasant, and the prints of another fox. The big surprise was the last half-mile. Coming up to Moyasta junction. I had heard that some restoration had been done, but to emerge literally crawling through a bank of briars under an electric fence to find a clear, clean strait railway was a real and pleasant surprise. I walked the rest of the way along the tracks. And in between them, some tiny new violets. The station itself was closed (and it looks like it has been that way since last year), but it was still fun to wander round and take photos of what they have collected and restored. Just as interesting was the discovery that after the museum and restored track, there was a junkyard full of trainy things: old locomotives which had crept away to die, a partially-dismantled iron bridge, and some carriages partially cleaned out, one also used as an occasional drinking den. The biggest surprise though was that behind the junkyard, the line still had track on it, heading off into the distance over the marshlands towards Kilkee. There were shotgun cartridge scattered on the line, suggesting someone had been wildfowling from up there over the winter. I've no idea how far the track goes. Only one way to find out.
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CPWH Archives
May 2019
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