Weather: 🌧️🌬️🌬️☁️🌬️🌧️🌬️🌬️
Picnic: 🌯 (1 out of 5, in a sheltered bit of boggy forest in a windpark)
Traction on track: 🍌🏊🏊🏊(1 out of 5 bananas and 3 out of 5 swimmers, because the trail was transformed into river most of the time …)
Trail appreciation: 🙂🙃😐(medium, yet very happy with the highway crossing and the effort made to keep us our of the bog with some boardwalk!)
Campsite: ⛺⛺ (sheltered with friendly people to help us, no streetlight on the tent, yet still windy as f..k)
Name of followed trail: Sli Gaeltacht Mhuscrai/ Duhallow way
We start today with rain. Unfortunate, because yesterday the weather was good!
Our bodies are happy with the rest we had though, so no complaints. We thought we were in for a relatively short walk, but track conditions and wind made it hard again.
We started on a lovely farmland track, wet, but pretty. After that we got to a bit close to the highway we needed to cross, which gave us a Mercer-flashback (TA-related trauma) This time though, there was a very decent track next to the horse, and a clean proper tunnel under the highway. Trail appreciation points for Ireland!
From there, more road, wet farmland and river like trails until we got to a windpark. And boy was the windpark at the right spot! Great views, good track, yet impossible to find a sheltered lunch spot. We hid in between the trees and managed a quiet lunch in the end. After the windpark we got to the open hills again. Some parts had boardwalk, others did not. The wind made it hard for us on either, because the wind against the backpack meant that your planned step never really works out, because the wind gets your foot to land on a different spot. Beautiful surrounding, but hard work. We met some lovely ladies on track that pointed us to Millstreet, and told us to camp in the park (this seems to become ‘the new normal’ here).
By the time we got to the road, we were happy to make some progress again! Before long, we get thrown into muddy hill tracks again and Mark is done with it. But the trail is not. We continue and luckily the trail flattens out a bit. Still slippery though, and I land into the mud. Much to Marks amusement, because finally, it isn’t him but me!
We walk the last bit of road in the rain again, and see a tiny lamb getting through the fence. It can’t get back through again, so I pick it up and return it to its mother through the gate of the fence. Good deed of the day done! We stop at a creek and get in it with our muddy shoes to get a little bit clean before we head to the pub. Clean and wet is better than muddy and wet after all!
The trail was good, but recent weather had made it more like a river, so dry feet were of the menu. And since I decided to not wear waterproof socks today, wet was really wet, and eventually cold. Another lesson learned here…🫣
in Millstreet in the pub we surprise some people with our story, and they point us to the park near the football pitch. So after a drink, we go there and look for a spot that is a bit sheltered, because it is sill really windy.
We’re dead tired, so after a good meal of noodles, we go to sleep!