Camp to Annascaul

Today was the first day of our hike. From Camp to the village of Anascaul, 12 miles down the Way.

The day started with an Irish Breakfast. That started with yogurt, and was followed by sausage, ham, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, tea/coffee, and toast.  Kathleen, our proprietress, was disappointed that I didn’t want cereal as well.  To avoid further disappointment, I hid the blood sausage under my napkin. Marty, in full Irish breakfast mode, had both the cereal and the blood sausage.

We got away a little after nine. Sunny skies, high clouds, and temperature around 60. For the first couple of miles the walk was uphill on a single lane back road. The road was edged with hedges of fuschia and other flowering bushes well over our heads.   At the top, the view opened up to the Bay of Tralee behind us, and green mountains and valleys ahead. The green in the valleys and part way up the mountains was broken up into patchwork patterns created by networks of old stone walls.  A lot of the patchwork was flecked with white dots. Grazing sheep.

This countryside is gorgeous.

The path turned off the back road onto a farm lane, and for the next several miles went down one of these large, open valleys, past a peat harvesting area, and through several farms. The farmers in this area “brand” their sheep with a spot of color on their backs. This led Marty to observe that we had gone through the land of red sheep, were now in the land of blue sheep, and up ahead we could see the land of green sheep.  After this observation, I let Marty walk ahead a little ways by himself.  
  

At the end if the valley, the trail crossed the Emlagh River, then climbed again and headed west around a long ridge. We were now at the south end of the Dingle Peninsula, and the view  down below us was of a long white beach (Inch Strand), Castlemain Harbour, and Dingle Bay  heading west. Off in the distance was the Atlantic.  Further south across the bay was the Kerry Peninsula.  Awesome.

After following the ridge west, the trail turned inland to climb behind Knockafeehane Mountain before dropping a couple of miles down an arrow straight one lane road into the village of Anascaul, our destination for the day. We got to the Four Winds B&B a little after two. We made great time today.

We had dinner tonight at the South Pole Inn in Annascaul. More about that in a different post. But I wanted to mention that Marty had lamb chops.  He did not ask the waiter if they came from the land of blue lambs, red lambs, or green lambs.  But he thought about it.