Day 20, Leinster hill – Clonegall

Weather: ☁️🌤️🌤️🌧️🌤️
Picnic-moment: we found a bench for picnic, but there was also a sign saying: ‘Food’ towards the pub 🤔😋
Track: ☘️☘️☘️☘️(4 out of 5, nice tracks and roads, beautiful views and nice villages)
Letdown of the day: the 9 stone row on Leinster hill was quite underwhelming
Surprise of the day: the restaurant that opened within half an hour of our arrival!
Best pie so far: banoffee pie! And yes, I ate all of it on my own 😋😋
Campsite: ⛺⛺⛺⛺ (4 out of 5 flat, spacious, flat and spacious. Did I already mention flat and spacious? Maybe this rating is slightly biased 😅)
Name of followed trail: South Leinster way –> Wicklow way
Special thanks to: the gentleman who drove by and offered us a campsite when we were drying our tent! No need, but grateful for the kind offer ❤️

We woke up after a night of fighting with the ground. Mark declared that the twist in de ground didn’t match his vertebrae, where I had to hold on to my mattress to stay on it. Tonight we’ll do better, we promise ourselves.

The weather had improved a lot and the sky is clearing while we walk up to the 9 Stone row. We nearly miss it due to the underwhelming size. The views are magnificent though, so we’d suggest marketing the spot for the views instead of the Stone row.

We continue our walk through forests and meadows in beautiful spring weather! While we feel it’s time for lunch we start hoping for a bench. We find one at a busy road, not the best spot. We also see a sign that says ‘Food’. Google Maps tells us there is a pub nearby, and it opens in 30 minutes! Mark immediately suggests taking this bench anyway, so we can dry our tent while waiting for the pub to open!

While we sit there a car drives by. And it reverses. The man in the car offers us a sheltered spot to pitch our tent, just around the corner. Such a kind offer! We explain what we’re doing and thank him for his kindness. With our dry tent in the pack, we walk into Kildavin village, to Conway’s pub.

We get a nice place by the fire, and have lasagna for lunch. And then it’s time for desert! They have banoffee pie! And who am I to say no to that! It came with two spoons, so we could share. There was no need for that (although it was a bit much..) it was all mine to eat! It made the waiter laugh when he saw Marks spoon spotlessly clean next to the empty plate…
If calorie counting was a game, I definitely won today!

Happy and full of calories (eh energies) we leave Kildavin. Here we also leave the south Leinster way. We walk to Clonegall, where the Wicklow way starts, which will be our trail to Dublin.

Along the way we cross a bridge, called the Gate of Tears. This uplifting name is thanks to the many people that fled Ireland during the Great Famine. For many of them this was the last they saw of their homeland, before they travelled to the nearest port to sail to America, New Zealand or Australia.

On the way to Clonegall we have a chat with a cyclist (some of them appear to be quite friendly here) who is from Clonegall and speaks highly of his village. And so he should because it is indeed a lovely village. Plus it’s the all-Ireland winner of tidiest village for quite a few years!

We start the Wicklow way here and hike on to the nearest forest. We walk into it for a few kilometers, and find a lovely flat spacious spot under some beech trees.