We Did Eat Pretty Well

Flash Nelson is prone to taking pictures of his meals. Wonder if he does this at home. But it does provide a good record of how we ate. Breakfasts, Dinners, at B&B's, Pubs, and Restaurants....

Thanks to our B&B Owners

Even though this walk, like the others we've taken, is unguided, we don't take them alone. There's a network of B&B owners who were all special. Besides providing outstanding places to stay, they were all interested in us, knowledgeable about their country, area, and town, and anxious to make sure we were well taken care of.

Here are the places we stayed, the names of the owners, and pictures. Unfortunately we don't have pictures of all of them.

Glengarriff             Island View House              Imelda Lyne

Adrigole                 Ocean View                       Margaret O'Sullivan

Castletownbere       Island View B&B               Dennis Hanafin

Eyeries                  Coulagh Bay House             Therese O'Neill

Lauragh                 Mountain View                   Sheila O'Sullivan

Kenmare                Hawthorn House                Mary O'Brien

Doolin                    Riverfield House                Caitriona Garrahy

Flash, Goat, Spartacuss, and AnchorMan

Early on, there was a suggestion that all adopt trail names (Thanks, Sandy).

Even though tradition is that you can't pick your own name, we did allow folks to turn down some of the more lewd suggestions.

 So, from right to left, meet:

Flash: Homage to the Golden Flashes of Kent State and to the silver mane.

Goat: Comfortable going over rocks and up mountains. Friendly with sheep.

Spartacuss:  Old cuss with a Spartan hat.

AnchorMan:  Frequently bring up the.... news.  

One Happy Guy

Look at the size of those Murphys!

Lauragh to Kenmare

The last day of the walk, and maybe the longest day mileage wise.

Sheila gave us a head start today and dropped us at a trail head a couple of mile up from her B&B.

From there, it was a pretty good uphill to a pass overlooking a string of lakes below and the next range of hills beyond. Downhill and past the lakes we started a long uphill on a road then up to a pass. From the top we could see Kenmare, the end of the day, still several miles away. By the time we got into Kenmare, we were so parched we went for a beer before we went for a shower.

Kenmare is the biggest town we've been in since Kinsale. Kenmare sits at the inner intersections of the Iveragh and Beara peninsulas. I've been in Kenmare before. Once when walking the Kerry Way, and once when Marty and I came back with our wives. The B&B was right in town, run by Mary O'Brien, and was where we left the car.

Lots of choices for where to go for dinner. We wound up at the the Coachmen's for some decent pub grub. Since this was the last night of the walk (and my birthday), it was a good opportunity to do some bar hopping. But everyone was too spent from the long day, so it wound up being an early night.

I haven't written much about the weather, but the weather has been an important part of this trip. Every day has been sunny, few clouds, and highs in the low 80's. That's unheard of in Ireland, particularly this part of the country. Several days have been the warmest days in decades. The local folks we've talked too all say it's the first real summer they've had in years.

And they're enjoying it. Lots of people on the beaches. (That's a relative statement. “Lots” means a dozen or less at most of the beaches we've passed.) Strangely, we completed this walk without even needing our rain gear.

But the weather hasn't been the best weather for walking. Cloudy days and cooler temperatures would have been a lot better. We've finished several days pretty dehydrated and rationing our water.

Eyeries to Lauragh

Leaving Eyeries, the Way followed a farm road, wound around the edge of a small lake, then climbed up onto a ridge. After following the ridge for a couple of miles, it dropped down onto another back road that led into Ardgroom in time for lunch. The highlight of the trail today was being in a village at lunch time, getting a freshly made sandwich, a diet coke, and sitting on a chair.

After lunch, we headed out of Ardgroom on a back road. After a couple of miles, the trail joined up with a main road with little traffic. When the signposts turned off the road, Dick and I split up from the other two. Marty and John took the path that led around the side of a hill, Dick and I stayed on the road. Longer, but easier walking. We planned on meeting at the B&B, 4-5 miles ahead.

Along the road, we stopped and talked to a man standing in his yard. Actually, he stopped us, and was anxious to talk. The man had a heavy, heavy brogue, and probably spoke in a combination of English and Gaelic. I think we talked about weather, and maybe football. We may have talked politics, but I'm not certain. But I know we all enjoyed the conversation. Then we went on.

Several miles later, we walked through Lauragh (tiny, only a post office), and turned down a back road towards our B&B. At the next intersection there was supposed to be a closed up pub where we turned. The closed pub was there, and so were Marty and John. They'd gotten there just a few minutes ahead of us. While we were taking a break there, a car drove by, stopped, and the driver rolled down the window. “I suppose you'll be staying with me tonight”, she said. It was Sheila, the owner of the B&B were heading to. Ireland really is

a small island.

That night we ate at the B&B – there's no other restaurant nearby. A great meal. We all thought it was a beef roast – turns out it was lamb.

Castletownbere to Eyeries

The walk today took us out the main loop of the Beara Way to the point where, heading northwest, it crosses the central mountains, heads down the north side, and starts turning back east. Kenmare, the end of the walk is three days away.

Just outside of Castletownbere are the remains of a stone circle, a mini-Stonehenge. Like Stonehenge, it had some religious significance centuries ago, and like Stonehenge, it's still being studied. As we were leaving the circle, a small tour was arriving. One of the folks on the tour walked past me and said “Go Green.” My Michigan State Spartan hat also has religious significance in some circles.

The trail wound up the mountain and down an old farm road on the other side. When we got to the bottom we began hearing shouts from high up on the ridge to the east. A couple of farmers were up there gathering their sheep by herding them down the mountain. They may have had dogs with them, but they were too high for us to see them. The effect of watching the herding was of little white specks (sheep) moving across and down the mountain faster than we've ever seen them move, clustering together when they got to ravines and paths, and pouring down the slope. If you've ever seen a Pachinko game, it was kind of like that.

A little further on we started looking for a place to stop for lunch. We were following around the north side of an open ridge and there were some great views of Kenmare Bay and the Iveragh peninsula.

One good spot had been taken by a Dutch couple also walking the Way. We stopped and talked to them for a couple of minutes, then moved on a few hundred yards to another spot. Dick was a few minutes behind the rest of us at this point.

Everyone knows how easy it is for Dick to make friends, and it turns out this was another example. When he got to where we stopped, Dick said that he'd come over the rise where the Dutch couple had stopped for lunch, and found the wife with her pants down. When hiking there are some things that you just have to do outdoors. Apparently the Dutch woman and Dick were both surprised and each scattered (like sheep down a mountain?) in different directions.

Dick told us that when he came over the rise he thought it was Marty. That raises a couple of questions. First, how does a Dutch woman with her pants down looks like Marty? Second, how would Dick know that anyway? 

Later on the couple walked by where we'd stopped for lunch and we all had good laugh. Poor woman. The husband said it was the fourth time today she had, uh....  Those Dutch are just full of information. 

The trail led on around the slope and down into Eyeries. Eyeries is a nice little village One store, one restaurant, two pubs, a nice B&B up on the hill. We were ultimately customers of each of these.