And back to Camp

This was the last hiking day. And the longest in terms of mileage. We left  Cloghane right around 9:00 ang got to our B&B in Camp at 5:00. This was the same B&B we stayed the first night, and where we left the car. Pretty good feeling to know we were through hiking.  We took the car back to Castlegregory, one of the villages we went through, and had a great meal in a little restaurant there.

The Way took as a long a long beach for several miles today, then through a couple of  great little villages. We made friends with a setter (a real Irish setter) along the way. He ran down the lane ahead of us and made sure we were following. He led us down the trail for over a mile. , then disappeared over a hill. When we got to the top of the hill, he was gone. I’m guessing he turned off and headed back home. He probably provides this guide service to a lot of the walkers that go by his house.

Bother Bui to Cloghane

This was the most grueling day. Total of around 15 miles, but the Way took us over the shoulder of Brandon Mountain. Brandon Mountain is around 3100 feet in elevation, but the trail took us over a saddle several hundred feet below its peak. Legend is that Saint Brendan the Navigator climbed to the top of the mountain around 530 AD, saw the Americas, and set out for them. The weather must have been different in 530 AD. Based on what we saw, Saint Brendan would have been lucky to see his feet.

We had several miles of walking to get to the base of Brandon. By then, the rain had started and we had our rain gear on. As we went up the mountain, the rain increased, along with the wind. By the time we got close to the top the wind gusts were easily 60 mph. We looked like those newscasters on the coast in a hurricane, only colder.

But we crossed the  shoulder and started down the other side. Going down was tougher than going up. In places it was almost steep enough to be going down facing the mountain. And for the first few miles there was no trail to speak of, only deep grass and a lot of mud and a lot of hillocks and rivulets to step over and around.  For much of the way there were places where the grass was flattened down as if something had slid down on the grass. We learned later that a lot of locals find it easier to “slide down on their bums.”  We should have tried that.

But we got down. After walking through the village of Brandon we got to our B&B, where we were welcomed warmly in spite of the rain and mud we brought along..

Ballyferriter to Bothar Bui

This was a mostly level day, and relatively short, but with spectacular scenery. Around 12 miles. A lot of the walk was along a  beach, and then along some cliffs, until we got to our B&B in the village of Bothar Bui, a little north of Balllydavid.

Don’t you love the names of these Irish places?

Good to have a short day today. Chance for a nap, and to get the  feet off the ground.

Cork Wins!!!

Sunday was Ireland’s equivalent of the Super Bowl. Teams from Cork and Down played in Dublin for the Irish football championship. Cork won by one point, after a twenty year championship drought. Down had gotten to finals by beating perennial champion Kerry.
Marty and I learned about this when having dinner (great meal) at the Ballyferriter Hotel pub and restaurant, where our B&B host had dropped us off at for dinner. Turns out the pub was full of Cork fans, wearing Cork red and white. Kind of like walking into a bar full of  Ohio State fans, except these fans were celebrating pretty peacefully.

So Marty and I got to watch a replay of the game, and learn a little about Irish (Gaelic) football.

If you remember the early days of ESPN (before ESPN invented replays of Sportcenter to fill up their air time), they used to show Australian Rules Football. A lot. Well, Irish football is similar like that. Some characteristics of rugby, a bit of soccer, and some things unique. It’s continuous play, but you can carry the ball some. There is passing, but scoring is done only by kicking the ball. One point for kicks over the goal posts, three points for kicking it under the goal posts past the goalie.

It’s fun to watch. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t require players to develop the skills necessary to be an NFL quarterback.   Matt Moore may have played Irish football.

Irish football also differs from American collegiate and NFL football in that the players are amateur. They all have other jobs. Or attend class.

    

Benji's Game

Benji belongs to the owner of the Café at Slea Head, in the far corner of the Dingle Peninsula.

Benji’s job is to teach Benji’s game to the visitors at the tables outside.

Once he decides who he wants to teach his game to, he’ll bark at you, walk up to you, and drop his tennis ball at your feet. When you reach for the ball he picks it up and runs to the corner of the building. Your trick at this point is to follow him to the corner of the building. When you get there he plays hard to get with the ball for a minute, then drops the ball in front of you and runs out into the field. Your next trick  is to pick up the ball and throw it so Benji can find it in the tall grass. When he finds it,  he comes back to the corner of the  building, plays hard to get, drops the ball in front of you, and he’s off again.

This is a pretty complex game, and it took Marty and I a while to learn it. But once we picked up the nuances, Benji let us play it with him for as long as he wanted.. When we got tired, and after Benji tried enticements like dropping the ball really really close to our feet, he just moved on to the next table.

With Apologies to Zac Brown

At Slea Head, after a long rainy morning and miles of boggy fields:

Got my boots full of water
Got my ass in a chair
Got a Guinness nearby
That’s Great Blasket out there
Life is good today
Life is good today

Dingle to Ballyferriter

When we left Dingle, rain was threatening, and by the time we were 10 minutes outside of town we put on our rain gear. For the next hour the rain intensified, and by the time we got to Ventry the wind was blowing and the rain coming down in sheets. And that was too bad because we  didn’t want to take the cameras out to capture our classic encounter with a herd of cows.

We came over a  rise in the narrow road we’d been walking down and there was a herd of about 20 cows walking toward us. By themselves. Now, this road was  barely more than one lane wide, with hedges on either side, so we were going to have to share this space. We were all surprised and not sure what to do. So all of us, cows and guys, stopped. The cows milled around, waiting for Marty and I to make the next move. We moved over to the right side, and walked forward. Reluctantly, the cows moved over, and started to walk past us.   With one exception. The last gal in back really didn’t want to move over. But after everyone else had gone ahead, and after staring us down for a minute, she walked around us and moved on. Several minutes later the farmer and his dog rode  by on an ATV, on the way to catch up with the herd to move them into a field down the way. Wish we’d been able to get a picture.

After a couple of hours the rain stopped, and we ultimately dried off. The walk took us through several mile of sheep fields around the edge of Slea Head, the mountain at the SW corner of he peninsula. Then, it was several miles up the Western coast of the peninsula with great views of the coastline and the Blasket Islands offshore. After passing Dunquin, and going over the saddle of another mountain, we wound up at  the  B&B farmhouse where we were staying for the night.

A long, 15 mile day.