‚It’s a long way to Tipperary’ …
actually not…it was WATERVILLLE, Ireland.
Ever heard of Waterville? I hadn’t and I would have probably never hiked there if it hadn’t been for two great friends who joined me on a 5 day hike along the famous Ring of Kerry and made sure that every aspect of my adventure would be worry-proof ( (except, of course, the weather, which turned out to be challenging).
Our hike from Caherciveen to Waterville would indeed involve a lot of wetness.
Thanks, Karin for your medicinal support and endless supply of plasters and creams….
Yes, non believers…we actually hiked all the way.
That day of walking consisted of two ridge-line walks. It was a climb up to and then on past the split, and as we made our way up the slippery slopes we passed through the cloud line. Inside the clouds it’s harder to notice it “raining”, but if you look down at all your gear you notice that it’s saturated.
The hours that followed can only be described as going up and down, and up and down, and up and down boggy mountains, sometimes under a thick grey blanket.
Occasionally,we stopped for some intense map staring (…… and the compulsory sip of Irish whiskey from our hipflask, which we had brought along in case of emergency!)
The longer we stared the harder the realisation was, how little ground we’d covered in that time. It’s funny how you can feel like you’re going flat out at your regular hiking pace, but the bog just swallows it all and reduced you to what seems like crawling. It had taken us four hours to walk what looked like only 4 or 5 kilometres.
In the evening, I laid out the cleanest looking of all my socks for the next day- I’d put on my last dry pair three days ago. My feet were swollen. I think fell asleep rubbing some soothing cream into them.
Still……..It is difficult to explain how thoroughly enjoyable each step, each hill, each field, each country lane still was.
I can only hope that God selected the same Landscape Architect to design Heaven that he chose for Ireland.
