Day 30: Hiking isn't actually very nice when you are carrying all of your luggage

We started off this morning in Dingle, and actually got a reasonably early start of about nine thirty (it doesn't seem that we'll ever get any faster with packing and breakfast). We walked through to the end of Dingle and onward into the wilderness--okay, the farmland.

Some of the...ummm...wildlife...

We continued onwards, took a recommended shortcut, and in surprisingly good time found ourselves in the town of Ventry, which had a post office, a shop, and a gorgeous beach.

The beauty of Ventry Beach

We walked along the pleasantly firm golden sand for two and a half kilometers, that stretched across hours, and finally got to the end. This was about the end of the fun part of the day, less than six miles in to a thirteen-mile hike.

We started to climb a bit again, then took a path that led us around Mount Eagle. Or should I say, led us up and down the shoulder of Mount Eagle in a zigzag pattern that sapped our energy as we plodded along trying to avoid stepping in too much sheep dung. Much of it was apparently in somebody's back pasture. But the views were pretty dramatic, and almost worth the pain (blisters, my hip seems a bit bruised, and my ego has been ripped to shreds).

Lookin back, you can see Ventry Harbor and even just a bit of Dingle Harbor

The Blasket Islands

Dunmore Head and some Slea Head cafes and shops

Mount Eagle had a ton of ancient structures--I don't know what those mounds of stones were but I think they had something to do with burial practices.

When we finally got around the mountain and into full view of the Blasket Islands, we stopped at a little cafe near Slea Head and enjoyed some Diet Coke and ice cream; I fell asleep while Mom ate yogurt. We then soldiered on to our accommodation in Dunquin. At least, we thought it was in Dunquin. It wasn't, it was in the next town over. Luckily that was about a quarter of a mile away, and an obliging and friendly young Irishman offered to give us a ride when we stopped in a bar and asked for additional directions (the bartender was oddly enough from Oregon, although she had adopted an Irish accent because she was studying Irish Gaelic in Galway). When we finally did arrive at our B&B for the night and gratefully put our packs down, we discovered that apparently there are no pubs or restaurants anywhere near that serve food after six in the off season. But our hosts apparently do a dinner service for walkers, so we got homemade lasagne, salad, and a lovely little dessert. I was exhausted and very hungry, and I wolfed that thing down almost without even seeing it. Riley would have been proud.

I expressed to Mom my doubts of being able to actually accomplish the rest of the trip: twelve miles was on the short end of the scale for the Dingle Way, and in two days we would have to shoulder a much larger mountain on a fifteen-mile trek. Mom began to agree, and we slowly accepted that the Dingle Way would not be enough fun to be worth all of the pain and struggle--travel is supposed to be enjoyable, not merely bearable. So we made tentative plans to stop in Feohanagh (I'm pretty sure it's pronounced fee-oh'-nach, where the -ch is a soft German phlegmy hiss or whatever you call it) and then taxi or hike from there to Dingle on the following day, spend some relaxing time in Dingle and then even get to Dublin a day early. This made me feel much calmer, and after a couple of nights of poor sleep because my bed was too hot, I fell asleep around ten thirty. Mom showered and enjoyed the room a bit more before turning in as well.