We left our guesthouse at 9:40 in light rain and wind. Today there would be quite a bit of walking on tarmac, temperature was about 14^ which is quite pleasant for walking. The roads are quite narrow and the cars drive fast. We walk single file and as close as possible to the grassy edge or hedges, yelling car if we hear one behind us or approaching. It seems to work as we are all still living!
We trudged along with the sight of an occasional field if there was a farm gate entrance, otherwise the hedges were too high for us to see over. There is quite a lot of wild fuchsias growing too. Well, the wind was picking up and so was the rain. Our guiding company who organized our tour has given us maps and printed directions for each day we hike. The instructions are quite detailed, for instance they tell us things like “ if you come to a part in the path with a blue rope across it, just duck under it” . So you can believe it would be , should be, next to impossible to get lost. Well, it is not and was not. As I said the weather was worsening. We turned from tarmac to a muddy upward path. The water was running down the path in rivelets, rivelets of mud, we were also suspicious of the colour of the mud as it looked like the cows had been there at some time. We had gone possibly 4 km uphill when we decided that we had gone wrong somewhere, so back down the slippery path we went. …….flashback to earlier in the day while still on the tarmac, a fellow in a pickup truck stopped to tell us……don’t go down that road, stay up “there” on that one, it’s much faster to where you are going! But we were following our instructions! So yes, we made our way back to that road and carried on. By this time we were getting quite soaked, some of us more than others! We stayed on the road until we came in sight of the ocean and found the hiking signpost. We crossed the road to a path that led down to the beach. There were cement steps that contained to a little while then we were making our way on the grassy rocky cliff edge for about 100 yds to the Sandy beach. We walked in the sand for about 1 km to the pub, Paidi O’Shea’s, which was our pickup point of the day.
We went inside the pub and ordered bowls of seafood chowder and Guinness, of course. By this time we were all completely soaking wet and shivering! We took off as much of our clothing that was decent to remove. After a little while the fireplace was lit and we stood around it trying to dry the clothes on our bodies. I (Muriel) had a harder time, was probably wetter than the others due to my limited rain gear, Sandy decided I should make use of her silver emergency blanket. It did help a lot! After our soup and Guinness we ordered Irish coffees to further advance the warming process.
We then phoned our guide host and said we were ready for pickup. Places to stay on the hiking trail are not always conveniently located exactly the amount of km apart for hikers so they are transported to their accommodation for the night and then returned to the day before finish point to start again. This usually involves a short taxi ride. Our guest house today is in Vestry, there is one pub, so that is where we will have dinner.
After switching to dry clothes and stuffing our wet shoes with newspapers and then relaxing in our rooms we left to walk to the pub down the road for 7pm. The rugby game was about to start between Wales and Australia……wales were the victors. We shared pizza and played a few games of Farkle…..and Guinness and wine. We walked back to our guesthouse on a very dark road, no street lights in the countryside, just a lighted cell ph to show us the way.
It was a day we will ever forget, it’s very rare for us pilgrims to err on the path. Tomorrow is another day and the outlook is for better weather.
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