Great Roads No5: Lough Nafooey Drive
Once again, the area around Leenaun has provided us with another wonderful road. From Leenaun at the eastern tip of Killary Harbour take the R336 signposted for Maum. This is the road that we kicked off the first 'Great Roads' series with last year.
After 7kms take the left turn - signposted with a brown sign for Lough Nafooey. This is the beginning of our drive.
Initially, the road climbs slowly up a valley flanked by the heights of Bunnacunneen to the east and Rinavore to the west. There's the occasional house dotting an increasingly mountainous landscape as the road heads north before turning east.
By now the isolated houses have all but disappeared from the landscape, but cresting a ridge the vista opens out to a very attractive view over Lough Nafooey. Descending towards the western end of the lake the road runs alongside a river cut deep into the mountainside before meeting a tight hairpin and doubling back on itself for a short distance.
Everywhere the surface is good and the road is a pleasure to drive, even in a car with low ground-clearance such as the supercharged Lotus Exige we're driving today.
The road now follows the northern shore of the Lough which has a small sandy shore on its western end. Near the other end of the Lough the road begins to rise above the water, and we take the left road at the junction signposted for Ballinrobe. Now commences a really attractive section of this route with a series of sweeping corners rising all the time. Pause to look back over the valley and Lough Nafooey from one of the several viewing points before leaving this glorious valley - and its road - behind.
The steep cliffs of Cappanacreha and Buckaun now tower over the landscape towards the northwest but our road heads northeast towards the shores of Lough Mask, whose large expanse now spreads before us.
From here the road's character changes as it runs beside the shore passing through the village of Toormakeady and on towards Srah where it turns east once more towards the main Ballinrobe to Castlebar road - the N84, where we finish this exploration at Partry.
Although different in character to the road around Lough Nafooey, this is a satisfying road to drive, often with very good surfaces, and attractive glimpses of Lough Mask along most of its length.
This whole region of Galway and Mayo has relatively few roads on account of its mountainous nature, but the roads that do exist are often through areas of immense grandeur. We left the Lough Nafooey road promising ourselves that we would return to explore this region in detail on a future occasion not too far in the future.