Ireland Adventures - 5/4/2007 - 15/4/2007

University gives wacky holidays for Easter, so I took advantage of those and burned some personal time to take a 10 day holiday in Ireland. I started in Cork, visiting with Kate and Dave, and then Sarynna and Chase. Then I worked my way roughly west and north, sometimes with Dave, sometimes solo. The end result was 5 days of good hikes, all very different, several days of typical tourism and epic amounts of driving. A few photo highlights are below. More photo highlights are here. I took a few hundred photos overall, so highlights were hard to decide. Like any great trip, much fun was had and seeds were planted for many more adventures in the future.

Cavan Way – 14/4/2007

Kate’s friend Susan decided to join us for the Cavan Way, which meant that we were four instead of three and so there were four people to feed, water, house and walk from Friday evening to Sunday evening. I saw a lot of sheep in my time in Ireland. Getting organised, fed, stocked for the Cavan Way hike was a bit like herding sheep. With a blind sheep dog. Thankfully we didn’t have that far to go.

I guess it’s worth a mention that the inspiration for my week of Ireland adventures was a photo taken somewhere on the Cavan Way that I saw on a website this time a year ago.

Feeding, shopping and much driving fuelled by sugar brought us to Clancy’s of Glenfarne, our home for the evening. It put us just a few miles from the start of our walk in Blacklion. Most importantly at that moment, it was a pillow under my tired head. Brisk Errisbeg, frantic job application in Galway, Maumturks and more than 2 hours of driving because of a couple wrong turns. Tired is a good word.

Breakfast at the B&B was amusing. Porridge was good. My gluten free egg whites with cheese arrived on two large slabs of toast and were coated in bread crumbs. Joy. The porridge was good. I’m in the oats are ok gluten free camp for now, and was grateful at least something came out right. We didn’t have much luck with organising a shuttle beforehand, so Dave and I made peace with the idea of hitchhiking at the end. We headed for the start in Blacklion and we were walking before 11.

The first part of the Cavan Way followed minor roads beyond Blacklion. The general trend was up for a wee while. Tarmac was replaced by gravel which was eventually replaced by dirt track before we finally left the parts where cars might be allowed. To be fair to the trail, I don’t recall any cars driving past on this stretch.

Soon, we were properly off road, wandering through fields and being eyed up by sheep. The trail wandered across fields and through the woods. We came to one open area and a dirt road, probably a logging road, that was well signposted with all of the side trips we could do to see relics and ruins. The trail took us back into the woods, where eventually, we made our first wrong turn of the day. Our signposts were yellow on brown. We started following the signposts that were yellow on beige. The end result was us standing on another logging road wondering where we were and, more importantly, where our signposts were. My compass and map came in handy. We wandered back into the woods, found an ancient hut site, found another wrong trail (that we thought was right) and followed it back to that same dirt road. My compass and map came in handy again. We aimed for the nearest village, a couple of houses and a church at a junction, and found ourselves reunited with the correct trail.

The trail took us along paved road for a wee while. As soon as it exited to fields, we found a nice lunch spot just near the Shannon Pot. Another group of walkers passed us as we were about to move on.

Picking up the trail again, we wandered toward forest, along it and then through it. The woods were thick and the resulting squelches were, too. The best part of trail to follow was the rockiest. We sank the least there. Dave and I were out ahead at this point. Kate and Susan lingered behind. Susan with her shiny new camera had a habit of bringing up the rear of the group. Still, she got a nice photo of me using Dave as a tripod, trying to get a photo of her and Kate entering the woods. My camera doesn’t focus well in darkness, so Dave’s head was a very useful tripod.

On the other side of the woods, we found a collection of picnic tables. Our picnic spot was better.

The trail took us back on paved road for a wee while. Kate demonstrated her rural Irish skills and herded a cow back into its field. The cow’s farmer made some overtures to help and then drove off on his tractor.

The trail alternated from on road to off road two or three more times, and each time gave us some quality squelching. Occasionally, the trail got lost among the mud, but following the River Shannon always helped us to find it again. At one point, I saw my first bull up close and personal as we walked across its field. Thankfully, he couldn’t care less about us.

The last few kilometres started to take their toll on us. My feet were sick of their boots, but otherwise I was fine. Kate’s one stick approach and favouritism for one achy ankle created an achy knee in the other leg. I don’t remember what Dave and Susan’s aches were, if any. I think part of why Dave kept pace with me was because that meant done sooner. A darkish cloud and a slight pressure drop suggested rain might be on the way. Thankfully, it wasn’t in a rush. We came to the junction with the main road into Dowra and could see the hint of the trail’s end up ahead. One wee hill remained. Dave and I waited at the junction for Susan and Kate to catch up before wandering into town.

The end of the trail signified the beginning of a new adventure for Dave and me, hitchhiking back to Blacklion. I was the driver, but no way was I hitchhiking alone. Over thirty minutes of patience and tolerance of one cheeky local, finally we caught a ride a bit more than halfway to the main road. The driver was a really nice, really country guy. I understood about ¾ of what he said. Thankfully, Dave understood more. They got to talking about holidays and the guy complained about his honeymoon to Boston and New York. I said now probably wasn’t the best time to say I’m from New York. He laughed.

We were in the car around 10-15 minutes when he got to where he was going and dropped us off. We passed his brother’s house and I think a cousin’s house along the way. We thanked him and started walking/hitching again. Forty-five minutes later, with the N16 in sight, we got picked up again. We wondered if it was one of that guy’s brothers. This guy took us all the way to Blacklion. I understood only about ½ of what he said. Something about cairns along the roadside. I didn’t see cairns though, so I questioned my hearing. Arriving in Blacklion, we thanked him, retrieved the car and retrieved Kate and Susan from the pub in Dowra.

Rather than return to our B&B from the previous night, we aimed for Sligo. Along the way, Kate reported a potentially drunk driver to the Garda and I got breathalysed by the Garda coming into Sligo. I blamed her.

Our Sligo hostel for the evening turned out to be an Episcopal Missionary. We ate dinner at the same Indian restaurant where I got takeaway for my Wednesday picnic and decided to delay the celebratory drink until the next day when it might not put us to sleep immediately. Perhaps we should have gotten into the alcohol because nobody slept particularly well at the hostel. None of us were enticed by the showers the next morning, so we decided to revel in our stink for the drive back to Cork. We took a picnic lunch in Ennis because no restaurants open for Sunday lunch were Christine-friendly. The return to Cork was celebrated by a meal we cooked ourselves. Tardy but welcome celebratory drinks followed to toast our success and enjoyment of the Cavan Way.

Central Maumturks – 13/4/2007

A few days back, I asked Dave if he wanted to do something silly on the Friday, since it would be the two of us walking. Actually, the word I used was abusive. He was keen. We picked a circular moderate-difficult 12km route in the Central Maumturks. The taste of the 12 Bens marked difficult seemed a bit excessive on the silly scale given our lack of experience and time constraints. We needed to survive it and get back to Galway to meet Kate at the bus. The Central Maumturks walk promised two challenging summits and nice views around Connemara. We left relatively early on Friday and headed back the way I came in from Thursday.

We were the first at the starting car park. The route had us walk from Mamean to a shrine of sorts (apparently the walk was blessed by St. Patrick?) and then up the side of the first hill. Like every other walk I had done so far, this walk, too, was very different. The rock was a mix of quartz and something else, or something elses, that I didn’t recognise. The farther we climbed, the more rocky the hill got. Also, the more wind we encountered. With what looked like the first summit cairn in sight, we found a sheltered spot to enjoy lunch and sunshine.

After lunch, we reached the summit cairn within about another 20 minutes of walking. The views were impressive, as were the scree slopes down all around. We looked at the book and the map to decide the best path to the second hill, whose summit was beyond our view. It looked like multiple ridge crossings and multiple summits before we would reach the true summit. I was grateful it wasn’t windier because the second ridge crossing looked quite exposed given the wind’s current direction.

We set off down one of the scree slopes to the ridge crossing. Occasionally, a clear path was evident but then it would disappear among the rocks. We worked our way up the other side and eventually around to the higher, exposed ridge crossing. The second summit became visible, a lone cairn in the distance. The ridge crossing was simpler than I expected. Because of the wind, I stayed on the windward side of the hill for the next bit of climbing. In retrospect, and, of course, once I saw the leeward side, it would have been better for climbing. We took a short break behind this first summit before continuing toward the true summit.

As we approached the true summit, three summit cairns became evident. When we reached the summit, I put wee stones on each cairn, not wanting to make any one feel better or the others feel slighted.

We took a few photos, took a few minutes rest and then looked for the safest route down. Nothing looked ideal so we just started walking. Dave led the way for most of it, occasionally bursting into a labrador retriever style run down the hill slope. I took my usual slow and deliberate pace. Occasional squelches through muck suggested the walk would have been very different had Ireland been enjoying more characteristic weather for April.

From nearly the bottom of the hill, we had to work our way back to the road in the distance. Rather than straight line, I suggested we follow the hill around to help minimise the distance walked on the road. Eventually houses came into view and we chose then to walk out to the road rather than traipse through someone’s garden later.

The walk along the road was much longer than either of us expected. Over each wee hill, we expected to see the car park but didn’t. We encountered a few other walkers, some social and others not. Finally, the car park came into view, with a few children sprawled in the heather between it and us. One large family appeared to be enjoying a roadside picnic; they belonged to the anti-social walkers we had encountered. We changed out of boots, checked the time and made our way back to Galway to retrieve Susan and Kate from the bus depot.

Connemara, Kylemore Abbey and Errisbeg – 12/4/2007

Meeting Dave in Galway at one of the pubs we visited Tuesday evening meant I really needed to be heading roughly south for whatever I decided to do. I narrowed my options to the holy walk at Croagh Patrick and a walk above Kylemore Abbey, both in Connemara, aka Joyce’s Country. In the morning, I decided to head for Kylemore Abbey, hike Doughruagh and explore the abbey. The drive there was really misty and made me nervous that I wouldn’t be able to do anything, but the mist parted pretty much as soon as I crossed onto the peninsula.

Kylemore Abbey was a bit of a bust. I was annoyed to pay €12 as an entrance fee only to find the path up to the statue that formed the beginning of the trail to be blocked by a bunch of nasty no entry signs. Grudgingly, I wandered the grounds of the abbey as a tourist but kept an eye out for other paths that might lead me in the same direction. I found one path but it became treacherously overgrown in less than 100m. I took a lunch break at the lough and looked through the book for Plan C options. Two came to mind. One was an easy walk close by overlooking Killary Harbour. I wasn’t super excited. The other was an easy-moderate walk on the south side of Connemara that promised nice views for its mere 300m in vertical ascent. Errisbeg required a bit more driving and the timing would be really close for making it back to Galway on time, but it sounded much nicer for the afternoon.

I abandoned my foray into tourism and continued the drive around the peninsula. Along the way, I found perhaps the most obscure post office on my entire trip. It was convenient for a stop so Sarynna, Chase and Miki’s postcards all got mailed from there. I am interested to know how long they took to arrive.

The main road twisted around the peninsula. North of Roundstone, I jumped off the main road onto a secondary and progress slowed. I arrived in the village of Roundstone with about two and a half hours for the hike. The book called it 2-3 hours. I figured I could do it and wondered how close to the 2 hour mark I could finish it. The book had an interesting warning. “Note that the volcanic gabbro rock that makes up most of Errisbeg has magnetic properties that can affect compass needles, so great care is needed if navigating in mist.” Thankfully, the mist didn’t seem in the right mood to return.

I parked on the outskirts of the village and walked in to the pub where they started the trail description. The path followed a small country road up to a house and through a gate. A couple of cows looked at me funny as I walked past. The trail began cohesively but quickly disintegrated to nothing useful for following. Near the base of the hill, I followed the book’s description around for a wee while until I found a useful way to start upward. A couple of brief stretches of path gave me a good start as I tromped uphill. The peaks of Errisbeg were somewhat crown shaped with a valley in between. As I worked my way up, I found the first summit cairn and used that as a place to start. I worked my way from one summit cairn to the next to find the true summit. As the book said, the views were beautiful. One particular crossing of the valley made for a particularly muddy squelch that went past the top of my boot.

The summit cairn that I found to be the highest point was just barely above the bit with the artificial summit stone. I called that summitted and headed back down. Across from me in the centre of the summit crown’s valley, I saw a nice opening that would save me another ascent. The valley crossing was a bad idea. Squelch. Squelch. Squelch. I survived, though, found a couple of sheep paths, startled a couple of sheep and found my way down. I got a taste of what the book meant by faulty compass readings. North on the way up and south on the way down didn’t quite match where they should have been. Visibility was good enough. I just headed for the cows and the house beside them. They laughed when I managed a face plant trying to take their photograph. I arrived back at the car, cleaned off the squelch as best I could and checked the time. One hour and forty-five minutes. Plenty of time to get back to Galway.

Northward tour and Glencar – 11/4/2007

Not feeling super energised for epic hikes after the night out, I decided to do useful things like get the Cavan Way trip slightly more organised and see about biking in our part of Ireland. After failing at the biking details (road touring was easy enough, but mountain biking was not) I motored up to Sligo and found a place to sleep there. The weather was gorgeous and the sunroof made the drive all the more enjoyable.

The hostel I found was in a dodgy part of town under the railroad tracks and past an industrial park. I wondered if I was checking into the Irish equivalent of the Bates Motel. The lady who checked me in seemed pleasant enough once I found her. No one else seemed to be around. Thankfully, by the time I got organised for the next part of my outing, others had started to trickle in and at worse, other victims were for the taking.

I found Indian takeaway and picked a nice spot for a picnic, a touristified walk to the waterfall at Glencar. After food and photos, I motored on toward Blacklion and Belcoo to see about accommodation options and also see how conspicuous the Cavan Way trail was. Accommodation was a bit of a bust but the trail was well marked. I wrote down a number of names for places to phone, but phoning would require internet to look up phone numbers. Nobody seemed to post their phone numbers on their signs. Do they want business? I motored in to Northern Ireland because I could and then headed back toward Sligo and sleep. Internet searches gave me phone numbers eventually and the next morning, I booked us at a place in Glenfarne.

The Cliffs of Moher had very descriptive signs.

Mahon Valley – 9/4/2007

Kate, Dave, Andrea and I set out for Mahon Valley on Monday morning. Our decision for the walk was based on three things, the circular route, moderate rating and the pretty picture in the guidebook. Oh, and probably the proximity to Cork for a day out without it being an epic. Once in County Waterford, we found the car park without any wrong turns. The route to it was well signposted along roads that brought out my inner rallye driver.

The walk from the car to the falls themselves is pretty accessible. We had a fair bit of company as we followed the dirt track from the car park to the base of the falls. The lack of rain made the base of the falls easily crossed in many places. The rock was mostly limestone, so crossing was easy but treacherous. Any wet spot was slippery. Any wet and green spot was an instant slide. Dave found a large boulder to perch himself atop for photos and despite its dryness, managed to fall off it in cartoonishly slow motion and roll into the creek below. The accessibility of the falls meant he had a proper audience for his falls, not just Andrea and me. We took a few minutes extra at the base of the falls to let Dave compose himself. Indignation and a few scrapes seemed to be his biggest wounds.

The route for the hike had us start at the base of the falls and hike up more or less following the falls. A narrow path was worn into the hillside. Limestone hillside meant lots of scree. One particular spot was a treacherous crossing. My trekking poles were quite useful for added support across. I gave one to Andrea to help her. Kate wasn’t a fan of the scree crossing. I could tell she was tempted to sit down and scooch across on her bum. That crossing and a few loose bits after kept my trail dog instincts in check. I didn’t let us get too separated on the path. The hike was proving easier than Hungry Hill but the risks were higher.

We reached the top easily enough and paused to enjoy the view and snap a few photos. Whoever was reading from the walking book misread the route. I forget who. We skipped the summit of the hill beside the falls and the walk around the outer ridge in favour of a few hops across the creek above the falls and scouting mission for a lunch stop. The winds were pretty strong, not what we expected when we left Cork, so the outer ridge hike may not have been as pleasant as the book described. We found a nice shelter behind some rocks and enjoyed a picnic with a great view down Mahon Valley. The limestone wasn’t as soft and nice for climbing as the sandstone, but I found a few interesting spots worth climbing.

After lunch, we followed the rim of the canyon around and back toward the car park. We enjoyed the views. Dave and I found one spot worth climbing to see a slightly higher view of the same scenery. We had very little company for the parts of the walk between about halfway up the waterfall and most of the way along the canyon rim. The closer we got to the car park the more people we encountered. The walk down was totally sheltered from the wind, so it was warm enough for just one layer. We took our time on the trek down the hillside. Dave and I forged ahead. Kate and Andrea took their time behind us. Andrea suffered for her lack of boots, turning her ankle at least twice. My ankle survived but certainly was grateful for the trekking poles.

In the end, our hike was probably a bit under 5K instead of the 10K that the book had described. It was a nice day out, beautiful day and beautiful scenery, and it allowed me to tick one family surname (McMahon) off the list even though I wasn’t really chasing those ambitions.

A hill walk beside Mahon Valley Falls ticked one family surname off the list.

Reunions and tourism around Cork – 7/4/2007 – 8/4/2007

My lesbian lover and her husband took their first European holiday at Easter to see me (and some of Ireland). Their plan was to arrive sometime Saturday afternoon and depart sometime Sunday afternoon. Our plans for those days involved lots of laziness and tourism. I drove. Kate played overbearing mother figure /navigator. We headed for Cork at lunchtime, shopped a little, lunched a lot and eventually retrieved Sarynna and Chase from the bus right around 5pm. Thankfully, they weren’t hungry. Eventually we went for Thai food in Midleton, in partial celebration of our past Salathai ritual. Sary and Chase wanted to hear trad music, but unfortunately Saturday night isn’t the time or the place for it. Instead, they had to cope with a typical night out in a typical Irish pub. They seemed happy enough for it.

The laziness of Saturday was replaced with touristiness for Sunday. We stuffed ourselves into my hired Ford Fiesta and headed for Blarney Castle. While queuing there, I saw the bus tour similar to the one my parents will be taking in August. We queued. We kissed. We queued more. I did tip the guy who was helping people not slip and bump their heads against the non-plummeting tourist grate below. Not being dropped seemed useful. Blarney Castle seems like a great place to play tag. Or hide and seek.

We stuffed ourselves back into the car and headed for tourist destination #2, Midleton Distillery, one of the homes of Jameson Whiskey. We had a few minutes before the tour so we took advantage of the time to have a hint of lunch. The soup was determined to be Christine-friendly and fast, so five bowls of soup it was. Then we queued and we toured. We learned the difference between Irish, Scottish and American whiskeys, whiskies and whiskeys, beyond just the spelling. At the end of the tour, Chase was selected as one of the official tasters. Along with two others, he got to taste the differences between whiskey, whisky and whiskey. The brands were Jameson, Johnnie Walker and Jack Daniels. She then asked each of them to choose a favourite. Each of them chose a different one with Chase choosing loyalty above flavour with his Jack Daniels. Each of the three was presented with a diploma establishing his credibility as an Irish whiskey taster.

While Chase was tasting firewater, I suffered another failed whiskey experiment. Irish whiskey was smooth as fire and not to my liking at all. It failed the two sip test miserably. I did like Kate’s whiskey and cranberry, but that seemed a bit blasphemous. Instead, I poured my whiskey into Dave’s glass.

Unfortunately, the end of our Jameson tourist experience meant the end of our reunion. Sarynna and Chase needed to get the bus back to Dublin. We dropped them off and replaced my friends with Kate’s friends for the rest of the evening. After pub, food, alcohol and a late dinner, we managed to convince one of them to join us for hillwalking the next day. The rest just looked at us like we were slightly mental.

Lesbian lovers reunited at the Blarney Stone.

Hungry Hill – 6/4/2007

I arrived in Ireland late Thursday armed with way too many warm clothes and Lonely Planet’s Walking in Ireland guide. The first walk we selected was a moderate-difficult loop at Hungry Hill on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork. Friday’s weather was more like (early) spring in Nashville rather than spring in Ireland. Bright, sunny, probably at least 15^oC. Dave drove. Initially Kate navigated. Then I navigated while she slept. We drove past the turn but she was none the wiser.

The basic route was up then over then more up. The guide book said it would be easier than it looked. It was mostly right. We had one little detour that took us a bit farther west(?) than perhaps we should have gone, but for the most part, everything was walkable or occasionally scramble-able. Lovely weather meant my rain jacket was extra weight. Also, I couldn’t make up my mind about the sweater. On off on off on off.

Taking me hillwalking can be a bit like taking a puppy for a walk, if my pace is faster. Kate and Dave lingered in the back while I was up and back and up and back. We stopped for lunch and Skittles, which quickly became my trail food of choice. Made with real fruit juice was sort of like drinking juice which was sort of like eating fruit. Right?

Hungry Hill had lots of rock and most of it was sandstone. The lack of rain lately meant for dry rock and positive pitch meant that both Dave and I did occasional silly things like climb instead of walk like normal people. My position as lead puppy meant I scrambled and climbed and then relayed information of the easiest paths back to a much more apprehensive Kate. We took a few more Skittle breaks and then reached the first lumpy overlook that showed the car very very small.

Next was the south summit, which to me looked about 100 vertical metres away from where we were standing. To Kate, it looked much farther away. She seemed worried about reaching it and finishing the walk with enough daylight. I said it would take 10-15 minutes max. We set out for it and I was on a mission. A combination of hiking, scrambling and jogging brought me to the grassy approach to the summit cairn. I took a photo of the view overlooking the speck that was our car and then jogged the rest of the way to the summit. After a few more photos, I walked back to make sure Kate and Dave were getting up ok and not swearing at me too much. The former was true. Not so sure on the latter.

Based on the time, we decided that the south summit was our summit and we would be faster getting back the way we came. With most of the miles left on the walk, we did risk running out of daylight continuing if we made any drastic errors navigating. The walk back to the car was very different from the walk up and it seemed to take just as long. I was absolutely the slowest getting down, embracing both my acrophobia and my weak ankles likelihood of injury as good reasons not to rush. We reached the car around what felt like dinner time (appropriately-named Hungry Hill) and set off on the important mission of finding food that I could eat. On Good Friday. When just about EVERYTHING in Ireland is closed.

I enjoyed a guru moment on the way up Hungry Hill on the Beara Peninsula (Ireland). (photo courtesy of Dave)