Foraging for food and views of the bay are some of the pleasures of a walk along Tramore Strand, writes MICHAEL FEWER
TRAMORE STRAND stretches 4km along the back of a magnificent bay between two rocky headlands. This easy walk, all on the flat, takes you away from the cars, amusement park and the beach which is packed in summertime, to a quiet, different land, a little bit of wilderness.
We follow the beach along the sea-side of a great shingle bank that extends eastwards from the resort and ends in a grassy duneland, called locally the sandhills, and we return along the inland side.
So, leave the swimmers and surfers behind and set out along the beach. Banks of shinning pebbles of many varieties can keep children happy along the way seeking the most beautiful examples. Apart from the polished sandstones and limestones of various shades, exotic pieces of flint and jasper can easily be found, and round cobbles of limestone, perforated with many tiny holes, which children are always amazed to hear were made by tiny creatures.
Above the high tide line plants like sandwort, orache, and sea beet somehow manage to suck sufficient nourishment from their salty, desert location. Many are not only edible, but very tasty when properly cooked. Local woman Grace O’Sullivan, who divides her time between teaching surfing and running ECO walks, recommends in particular sea beet. She promises its delicious when blanched and eaten on bread with a poached egg and Parmesan cheese.
At the high water mark, among beautiful clusters of prickly sea holly and pink-striped trumpets of sea bindweed, rock samphire can be found. It is also edible, with a kind of parsnip favour, and can be used in salads.
Many varieties of seaweed are nice to eat, and are regarded as a delicacy in some Asian countries. Although the beach at Tramore is not always the best place to harvest edible seaweeds, the wide range of varieties cast up on the beach from the rocky coves of the bay makes it an excellent schoolroom for seaweed identification. Examples of Dulse or Dillisk, once so popular that packets were sold in the shops in Tramore, can be found here, delicious when sun-dried and crispy. It is related to the Japanese nori that one gets in sushi restaurants.
The beach here was scene of many shipwrecks in the days of sail, the most infamous of which was the foundering of the Seahorse in January 1816, in which only 30 of the 363 people on board, including 71 women and children, were saved.
In less than 2km you reach the sandhills, the highest of which, Knockanriark or “the hill of the view”, reaches 26 metres. Ancient middens have been found in the sandhills, the remains of cooking places that date back up to 9,000 years, and I have no doubt that these hunter-gatherers augmented their diet of fish, birds and fruit with seaweeds and shore plants.
As soon as you pass by the first of the tall dunes, take a little detour into the interior, which is criss-crossed with paths and where the quiet air is full of the narcotic perfumes of herbage and wildflowers. It is a landscape of sandy hillocks clothed in silver and grey-green marram grass and home to lizards, bloody-nose beetles, cinnabar caterpillars and burnet moths that graze on ragwort flowers.
DURING THE LATE summer months, amid the powdery yellow lady’s bedstraw and wild thyme, you will find clumps of dewberry, a ground-hugging blackberry with very tasty dark purple fruits. The young leaves can be made into a tea.
Don’t stay in this place after sundown: the phantom band of the Seahorse has been heard playing here, and a ghost called Gormog comes out of the sea each night to graze his cow in the dunes.
Returning to the beach, continue around the end of the sandhills, where you meet a narrow and turbulent watercourse dividing Tramore beach from the Saleens. Here the waters that flood the Back Strand run as fast as 1.5 metres per second, so it is not a place to bathe!
Begin your return to Tramore along the north side of the sandhills on the shore of the Back Strand. Prodigious amounts of large cockles can be harvested from the sands here when the tide is out, leaving a vast area of sand and mud banks interspersed with deep pools. It is a very rich and valuable habitat for wildlife, and a nursery for a variety of young fish. Up to 600 cockles per square metre have been recorded here. Steamed cockles with white wine and herbs can be delicious!
At the end of the Back Strand beach you follow grassy paths along the back of the beach, where glorious seapinks are widespread in May. The salt marsh on the right has an edible plant called glasswort, the taste of which is similar to asparagus.
Before reaching civilisation again, we pass the remains of the old Tramore racecourse buildings, originally established about 1855, but which were inundated during storms in 1911 and 1912.
Route Tramore Strand, Co Waterford
START/FINISHEast end of Tramore promenade.
TIMELess than two hours if you are in a hurry.
SUITABILITYBest at any time but high tide, and suitable for all.
MAPOS Discovery Series, Sheet 76.
DISTANCE7km.