The Dingle Way

• It rained every one of the three days I rested in Killarney but was nice the morning I left to take the train to Tralee. I met someone there from my hiking group in Austin, Shannon. Once situated we set off on the first leg - eleven miles to a turn-off to the town of Camp. The Dingle Way is about 113 miles long but the first and last eleven miles are the same and the rest makes a big loop around the Dingle Peninsula. Most hikers go clockwise and that's what we did. That meant going left at the Camp turnoff and putting the town behind us. The problem with that was the next town was another eleven miles and it was late. To complicate things we were heading up a mountain shoulder (not the peak, thank goodness) and the weather was getting worse as the landscape got increasingly bleak. The weather had been nice all day but the wind was picking up and was getting pretty stiff. Finally, we found a rock quarry that provided some shelter from the wind with a water source nearby and we made camp there. It wasn't great and Shannon's tent blew down during the night, but it sufficed. 
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• Because we had pushed hard the first day we were able to take it a little easy the second day. Fortunately. We were in clouds when we got up in the morning and, as we hiked downhill, we got out of the clouds and into the rain. We were pretty wet. Eventually, the rain eased up and we worked past Inch Beach and eventually arrived in Annascaul, home of legendary Antarctica explorer Tom Crean and the pub and brewery he started there, The South Pole Inn. The food and beer was good and they let us camp in their field in the back. 
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• The biting gnats were driving me crazy in the morning and I skipped breakfast to get moving. About a half hour in to the day's hike I told Shannon I was going to stop to eat. She didn't want to stop and I told her I would catch up. While I was making breakfast a teenage sheep farmer came by and we ended up talking about sheep farming for about thirty minutes. It was a lot of fun and, considering I had been hiking in, or by, sheep paddocks for a month, it answered some questions I had. I've said it several times - the best part of this adventure has been the Irish people. 
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• The trail was beautiful, of course, and went by the first ruined castle of the trip, a coastal stronghold ruined by Cromwell's forces. It was advertised as a great wild camping site in my research but is closed now. Still, it was quite a sight.
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• After a long, hard day I arrived in Dingle, a very cool town that used to be a fishing port but is now a big resort town. I still had not caught up to Shannon (three missed turns and stopping to talk contributed) and was wondering where she might be. I wasn't worried because she had shown she was a capable and responsible hiker so I was sure she was okay, but it was a loose end. Once in the town I stopped at a likely looking pub for a bite and a pint. Normally, I leave my backpack outside when going into some place like this but there wasn't any room on the sidewalk so I tool it in with me. The lady there looked at me and asked if I was looking for a lady backpacker. The question was unexpected and I was kind of confused, so I said "no". Then I looked over and saw Shannon's gear. She was in the first place I stopped in. I even walked past a few pubs that didn't really strike my fancy. Fate at work.
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• We spent that night camping at a local hostel and headed out the next day on what might have been the prettiest day of my entire time in Ireland. After a beautiful hike on country roads we ended up at Vestry Beach, as pretty a beach as I've ever seen. The trail takes you on the beach around the bay before heading towards the shoulders of the local mountains. Really nice.

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• We then climbed up the mountain shoulders and around the bend of the peninsula. Our goal was Don Quin, a 14-mile hike from Dingle. Thank goodness the weather was still perfect because this was one of those trails I would dred doing in bad weather. Plus, the views were great. 
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• We rounded the bend, Skea Head (Ryan's Daughter and The Last Jedi both filmed scenes here) and on to Don Quin. The pub there said it was the western-most pub in Ireland but the road signs called it the western-most pub in Europe. Either way, we stopped there for drinks and dinner after a long day. There wasn't any place to stay in Don Quin, so we hiked to the coast and camped near the beach. Shannon was heading on to Berlin the next day and this was her last day on the trail. I didn't realize at the time it was also mine, but that's a story for my next post.

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