Hiking Day 6 Boherboy to Cuas Ballydavid (Boherboy - Cuas Ballydowd) 5 miles

Beautiful sunny day

A bit of reflection...We originally planned our trip using “The Dingle Way” by Sandra Bardwell. This is a good guide to the route, but doesn’t contain any information on places to stay.



Before we left, we downloaded another Dingle Way guide from HikeBike Travel.com, which has been very helpful in pointing out stores, accommodations and places to eat along the way.



While in Dingle, Jim purchased a very large, detailed map of the Dingle Peninsula. The upshot of this is that now we have three conflicting versions of where we are going each day.




Each morning we “consult the oracles”, comparing our two narrative guides, then checking them against the map. For the first few days they were pretty much in sync, but now chaos reigns!





Evidently, some rerouting of the Way has gone on recently, and, especially since we left the Way several times to split up our long days, who knows where the heck we are?



We left the hostel this morning for the short (less than 5 mile) walk to Ballycurrane. According to the map, we should be walking along the water, but the road turned immediately inland. At the crossroads, there was no Dingle Man, but a little white hiking man instead. Should we follow him?






A lady walking her dog happened by, and we asked for directions. She said the route was all changed, “and they ought to do something” about the signage. She gave us directions, and said the B&B we were looking for wasn’t even in Ballycurrane, but in Cuas!



We found the Dingle Man (who had lost his head), and took the path that headed across a field, which Bardwell said was boggy, hummicky, nearly impossible to traverse and should be avoided. HikeBike said it would be muddy, and gave different directions. The lady with the dog said it would be lovely. It WAS lovely.



















We crossed several stiles, met some donkeys as well as our daily allotment of sheep, and were at the An Bothar B&B by noon.




We wanted to have an afternoon of rest, before tackling Mount Brandon tomorrow.











Our hosts Maurice and Aileen run a beautiful place, with the nicest accommodations we’ve encountered, and run a pub as well.




We washed out some essentials, hung them out on the line, put up our feet, and took a nap. There was no town, nothing else to see and nowhere else to go, so we relaxed!





There was a menu in our room that led us to believe there would be culinary excellence for dinner, but it turned out to just be pub food, and nothing to write home about, so I won’t.

Our hosts spent time with us after supper, answering our questions about hurling and Irish football, and assuring us that hardly anybody dies going over Mount Brandon!

Hiking Day 5 Dunquin to Boherboy (Dun Chaoin – Boherboy) 12 miles

Warm and sunny

Today was supposed to be a 17 mile day, but we are following Justin’s advice and splitting it in two, ending at Boherboy (pronounced Boor BUOY, which means yellow road). Because we got off the trail to get to last night’s B&B, we have a long walk back on a paved road this morning.


This is a mixed blessing – we are staying on level ground, but the road is hard on the feet an it’s not much fun to walk with cars whizzing by in both direction on a very narrow road, with the traffic coming from the wrong direction (for us Americanos)!














By midmorning we had walked down to the beach and got to admire some lovely views over the sand dunes at Chogher (the G is silent – pronounced Clo HAIR).


















































We stopped at the studio of Louis Mulcahy – beautiful pottery and woolen scarves. Too bad we backpackers don’t want to add any extra weight to our packs!




This is the road to the Mulcahy Studio.









Our afternoon was a long walk on the beach all around Smerwick Harbour, watching the birds, the tourists with babies and dogs, and one brave swimmer.










Even though it was very sunny, it was still breezy and too cool for swimming as far as this Southern Belle was concerned. This was the second day in a row we stopped to put on sunscreen, and I was very glad for my little orange cap.












Leaving the harbour, we got back onto a paved road where a construction crew was laying new asphalt, so our footprints are enshrined in Ireland forever…

We were looking for the Tigan Phoist Hostel at Boherboy, between Murreagh and Feonaugh, which eventually came into view over my apprehensions (whenever we leave the trail now, I feel insecure if I don’t see the Dingle Man).

The hostel was clean, although there was only one bathroom / shower for 8 bedrooms. Luckily, only one other room was occupied, so sharing was not an issue. There was a convenience store adjoining the hostel, so we purchased microwave dinners, in addition to tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch. We had the kitchen and dining room to ourselves, and really enjoyed a hot shower (this hostel provided soap and a towel!) One learns to be thankful for simple things…

Hiking Day 4 Dingle to Dunquin (An Daingean - Dun Chaoin) 12 miles

A beautiful sunny day – Happy Third Anniversary, Jim! Thank you for this trip!

Our host Justin arranged our stays for the next two nights, in places not in our guidebooks, and told us of a halfway stop so that we won’t have to hike 17 miles in one day. That sounds like a very good idea to me!





At another lovely breakfast that included sweet little strawberries (Jim's still having the full Irish, and I'm very happy with yoghurt, Meusli and fruit), we met three young Germans traveling in the same direction. Although we started out earlier, I’m sure they’ll catch up and pass us before too long!

We picked up some fruit and sandwiches for our eventual lunch, and headed down to the water to pick up the trail. Dingle is a fisherman’s town, although these days the main industry is tourism.

We passed many “no vacancy” signs, and saw many rental cars at the waterfront, as well as the first tourist shops we’ve seen, selling all manner of things embossed with shamrocks and leprechauns… it's the first time we've seen touristy stuff, and it reminds me that we have not heard one person say, "top o' the morning"...



We had a lovely morning walk and were overtaken by the friendly Germans by 11:00.




The trail took us down to the beach at Dingle Bay, and we walked at the water’s edge for nearly and hour before heading back inland.



























After crossing a few stiles, we began to climb into an area with many stone walls. The walls are built without mortar, just stone on stone, and stand in all weathers for hundreds of years.






Here we saw our first clochan (little stone hut built by the Druids) and were soon to see many more. No one knows what the huts were used for. They are one of the things I have been waiting to see.

I've never seen so much stone upon stone as on this side of Mt. Eagle!

The views were spectacular and the sheep were abundant.





We also saw two ring forts overlooking the beach below at Slea Head.
















We descended until we reached the tarmac road at Dunmore Head, the most westerly point of mainland Ireland.




We went past the Dunquin Pier, and continued on the main road to find the B&B that Justin had recommended. It was a long walk on a busy road at the end of a long day, and I was very glad when the B&B came into view.

























Cleann Dearg is small and neat, run by Lilia, who decorated it with items brought home from Bali, which interested Jim very much. She served all of us (the Germans were here too) tea and biscuits on her sunny lawn, and we played fetch with her two dogs Jessie and Pippin.




The Germans are Daniel (on the right), an engineer who speaks excellent English and has been to visit the US, his girlfriend Kirsten, a doctor who is studying psychiatry (you can guess what she and Jim talked about), and their friend Timor, an engineer.


Because we weren’t near a town or a restaurant, we also ate dinner here, on a beautiful veranda hung with live grapevines growing inside. I’d love to be here in the autumn when the grapes are ripe!