I’m looking at the five tiny bumps in an almost neat line still just about visible across my forehead. They, and the fifteen other small bumps on my person, are the remnants of midge bites from our trip, almost all of them picked up during the marathon.
The rest of the group had to deal with midges on their climb up Mount Brandon, and they realised that they couldn’t linger at the top because of the amount of horse flies flying about. Most of us got off lightly, apart from Millan, my nephew, who looked like he had measles up his arms and legs.
It’s the only small negative to a wonderful holiday. Unless you count the final day’s outing to Loch a Dúin when my shoes and feet got a proper soaking. The walk’s description suggested a large number of Bronze Age ruins that would be visible along the route. Apparently, it’s a site that was populated nearly five thousand years ago before it became boggy.
My footwear choice, aside from my all-important trainers, has been a bit suspect during this trip. I took my big clumpy house-slippers, which took way too much space in the packing – with four adults on a long car-ride for a week’s holiday, this is a consideration. I do have walking shoes, but not great ones, so I brought my fell running shoes instead, which did squash up a bit more to compensate for the said slippers. These do have a good grip but get wet at any sniff of moisture. What this walk has told me is that good quality leather boots are the way forward, as both my sister, and my niece kept their feet dry for pretty much the whole walk. It would have absolutely the whole walk if my niece, with her bouncy, goat-like balance, hadn’t had to help both me and her mum cross the river.
By this point my feet were very wet from the aforementioned boggy ground, and the stepping stones were a bit too spaced out for me to chance it, so I walked through the water. I am a bit of a scaredy cat. It was in the final mile and a bit, and although it had been an interesting and sometimes challenging walk, we hadn’t found ancient ruins of any kind thus far. Even on the island in the Loch, the reason why I had binoculars slung over my shoulder, there had been nothing of interest.
Surprisingly, the river water didn’t feel quite as icy as I’d expected. I suppose, because I’d run into the Atlantic Ocean as far as my knees on Monday morning, I’d anticipated the same cold pain. I’d brought my tankini because I was feeling optimistic. Ironically, the one day that I might have considered putting it on was race-day. Realistically, it was another item packed unnecessarily, but after doing a nice recovery two-mile run on Fermoyle Beach in the morning, we came back, and I had on my tankini bottoms with my newly acquired, long-sleeved marathon top.
The sand there is beautiful and stretches for miles along the northern coast of the peninsula to the Maharees (pronounced ‘Ma-ha-REEs’). According to the book, it is the longest beach in Ireland. The sand is fine and compacted into waves of stone and coral colours. It had been perfect to run on at half seven in the morning and it was empty apart from one man and his dog.
When we returned, I had every intention of getting in, at least to my waist. I slipped off my Teva sandals (very compact, great for packing) and ran in, and almost as quickly, ran out again. My sister Hersha joined me, and it was only up to the knees for her too, as her trousers couldn’t be pulled up much higher. I’m not a well-hard wild swimmer and that blast on the calves was enough for me. Anne had the best idea, though, relaxing in her bucket chair, drawing the scene, and absorbing the colours and salty air of this beautiful coastline.
I know that Ireland as a holiday destination gets a bad rap for its weather, although it evidently hasn’t put off the Americans. We were extremely lucky during our week, especially as it was so wet back home. There were two rainy mornings when the garden chairs got flung into the bushes, but other than that it has been dry. Which is more than I could say for my feet during our search for ancient human activity.
We did, eventually see a small crypt thingy, and one standing stone. ‘Well, I guess it’s made of stone, and it’s standing’ was the comment by my unimpressed niece. My shoes were almost drying out by the time we’d found them, as they were near the end of our walk, but we did enjoy the afternoon, nonetheless. There was no-one else on the hike, apart from one (American) couple, and sometimes I felt like I was on a little Middle-Earth quest, like a hobbit, such was the landscape, and such is the way my brain works.
I don’t think The Lord of The Rings films were ever filmed here, but one of the Star Wars films (The Force Awakens) captured the beauty of the Skellig Islands just off the next peninsula. We never got a chance to go on one of the many boat trips that can be made, nor did we do the Ring of Kerry that is a famous drive in the peninsula below Dingle. However, we’ve still managed to pack quite a lot in to our six and a bit days in the area, and it has been amazing.
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