Weather: ☁️☁️🌧️☁️
Picnic: 🌯🌯🌯 (3 out of 5, dry, nice spot along the river)
Trail quality: 👟👟👟👟(4 out of 5 for really walkable, because the track and road were good)
Best part of the trail: Trail at Fermoy next to the river!
Useless part of the trail: the non-hiker proof gates in the fields we needed to climb.
Milestone: 250 km today!
Broken gear: my camera…
Hotel:🛌🛌🛌🛌 hotel Belvedere in Cork, great beds, lovely staf!
Name of followed trail: Blackwater way
Special thanks to: the farmer in his tractor that made our day at our 250 km point by his genuine surprised face when he heard our story!
After a night with climbing up our mattresses because of the slope in our tent, we pack up early again, on to Fermoy!
We have a nice walk today, with a lot of variety in trail, track and road. That’s nice for the feet after a day with lots of tarmac! Lovely green forest (wonder how it got this green…😅) and farmland. After 8 kms my watch buzzes. 250km mark reached! We celebrate this by making a 250 our of shamrock ☘️☘️☘️. Around this point we meet a farmer in a tractor who starts conversation with us. “Maybe a silly question, but what made you go hiking here?” He didn’t know he was in for a really silly answer, and he sure didn’t expect us to say ” We’re walking to Istanbul” 🤣🤣🤣 Genuinely surprised and interested in the story, we had a good chat. I love the curiosity and openness to conversation in this country! We leave a surprised farmer with a sticker and continue our way.
250 km in. Twenty-six more times we will celebrate another 250 km mark. It’s crazy to think of it… So far it has been tough but good. We’ve met some great people, found a lot of kindness along the way, and walked a great trail through Ireland so far (even though it destroyed Marks shoes and hikingpole…)
At a nice river we stop for lunch. No bench, but still a good spot. After that we continue and pass a field with horses. When I try to make a picture, my camera won’t turn on. I try a few more times, battery out and in, etc. but nothing seems to work… I decide to sort it out later and get my phone for pictures of the rest of the day.
Note: camera still doesn’t work, so most of today’s pictures are stuck on the SD-card until I find a way to get them transferred to my phone…
When we run out of water, so ring a door somewhere and a lively lady helps us to some water. She clearly wasn’t in for hiking herself, and happy to see me safe with two men on trail. Very sweet!
We walk down through the forest to the Blackwater river and enjoy the lovely track along the riverside. We have to do some acrobatics because the person that designed the gates clearly didn’t have hikers with big packs in mind…
When we get to Fermoy we’ve got just enough time for a quick coffee before we catch the 16.00 bus to Cork.
in our hotel, we put our gear to dry and celebrate our 250 km with a well deserved steak!