STAY AT HOME - STRANGFORD LOUGH

The largest inlet in Northern Ireland is brimming with opportunities for outdoor adventure, from birdlife to bracing waterside walks

- SARAH BARRELL

Why go

Make the 50-mile loop around the UK’s largest sea inlet and you’ll find a natural playground of hiking trails, scenic bays and superlative places to paddle. At nearly 60sq miles, this vast lough is almost entirely enclosed by County Down’s Ards Peninsula, save for a narrow south-eastern channel where powerful tides from the Irish Sea gave rise to its Norse name of ‘Strangfyorthe’ or ‘strong fjord’. The Vikings mastered these mighty currents over three centuries of visiting the region, plundering monasteries, but it’s a much calmer escape these days, painted in a palette of sea blues, gentle greens and sunny yellow gorse. The area’s also home to protected mudflats and wetlands, where the wealth of birdlife belies the lough’s proximity to Belfast, some 20 miles away.

What to do