Getting there and the tide
Rough Island is only an island for part of the day. A concrete causeway runs out from the end of Ringcreevy Road, near Comber, and links it to the mainland at the top of Strangford Lough – but for roughly an hour either side of high tide the sea covers the crossing and the island is cut off. That tidal crossing is the whole point of the walk, and also the one thing that can go wrong, so get the timing right before anything else.
Island Hill has no tide station of its own. The reliable method is to look up the low-water time for Belfast on the Easytide website and add 2 hours 15 minutes to get the safe window for Island Hill. Check it, and if the tide turns faster than you expect, or the weather closes in, head back straight away. If anyone does get stranded, call 999 or 112 and ask for the Coastguard.
Park at Island Hill Nature Reserve, signposted off the A21 near Comber. The car park is free and has picnic tables, toilets (accessible toilets need a RADAR key) and a totem pole marking the spot.
The walk
The loop around the island is about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) and flat: concrete causeway first, then grass and stony paths, with a few low bridges and steps. Allow 30 to 60 minutes, more if you stop for the birds. It is a short walk by any measure, so treat it as an hour out rather than a day, and build it around a low tide.
The mudflats and salt marsh around the island draw wildfowl and waders – ducks, geese and curlews in numbers on a good morning. Between March and July, oystercatchers and ringed plovers nest on the ground here, which is the reason to keep dogs close and to the paths in those months. From the middle of the island the view opens up across the lough to Scrabo Tower, the Mourne Mountains and, on a clear day, the Ards Peninsula.
History
For such a small patch of ground, Rough Island has been in use a long time. In 1936 a team of Harvard archaeologists excavated it and found shell middens and flint tools pointing to Mesolithic and Neolithic occupation, some of it around 7000 BC. Much later it was farmed and lived on until the 1950s, and a few bricks, a low wall and the outline of an old orchard are all that survive of that. The name is generally taken to describe the rocky, shell-strewn shore rather than the going underfoot.
Practical information
- Admission – free; no booking.
- Parking and facilities – free car park at Island Hill, with picnic tables and toilets (accessible toilets by RADAR key).
- Dogs – the island is popular with dog walkers; keep dogs on a lead near the ground-nesting birds through the March–July breeding season.
- Public transport – Translink buses serve nearby Comber and Newtownards, from where the reserve is a walk.
- Best time to visit – any low tide with decent light. Spring brings the most bird activity; the car park fills quickly on summer weekends.
Nearby
Scrabo Tower stands on its hill a short drive off, with its own long views over the lough. Further round the shore, the Nendrum monastic site keeps an early-medieval round-tower stump and the remains of a monastery, and the Mount Stewart estate nearby is worth a half-day for its gardens alone. Any one of them pairs neatly with an hour on Rough Island – just fix the island end of the day to the tide, not the other way round.