Day: |
007 |
Date: |
Thursday, 31 March 2016 |
Start: |
Borris |
Finish: |
Inistioge |
Daily
Kilometres: |
31 |
Total
Kilometres: |
218 |
Weather: |
Cold and sunny in the morning. Cool
and partly sunny in the afternoon. |
Accommodation: |
Woodstock Arms B&B |
Nutrition: |
Breakfast: Full Irish Breakfast
Lunch: Muesli bars, Snickers Bar and chocolate Dinner:
Baked fish pie and rocky road slice |
Aches: |
Feet very tired by end. Hopefully
they will start adjusting soon. |
Highlight: |
Discovering I had arrived in Inistioge 30
minutes before the only place in town where food could be bought
closed for the night. |
Lowlight: |
The roadwalk for the first few kilometres
out of Borris in the morning was a little tedious because of the
amount and speed of the traffic. |
Pictures: |
Here |
GPS Track: |
Here |
Journal: |
Yet another hearty Irish breakfast, during
which my hostess, Brenda, was surprised to learn I had seen a fox
from my bedroom window last night. She had never seen one
locally. After breakfast, she offered to drive me back into
town where I had been picked up the previous night. I accepted
though was starting to wonder whether it would have been quicker to
walk by the time the thick layer of frost on the car windows was
sufficiently melted to drive.
Borris is a long thin historic
town with the village mostly on one side of the main street and the
ancient high stone wall around Borris House on the other, and it
took a long time to reach the countryside again. But it was
another beautiful clear sunny morning and I wasn't complaining,
though I didn't enjoy the couple of kilometres walking along a busy
main road after Borris before I reached the River Barrow. The
South Leinster Way then followed the river bank for the rest of the
morning. It was a nice grassy track and I had it almost
entirely to myself. Beautiful and peaceful. There were a
few unmanned locks along the way and quite a number of barges tied
up at the picturesque village of Graiguenamanagh which I reached
around midday.
The trail then crossed the river, passed
through part of the village, and began a long gradual ascent along a
quiet lane to the shoulder of Brandon Hill. The higher I got
the better the views were, and once the trail levelled out, it was
thoroughly enjoyable. Soon though, it moved into the
inevitable working pine plantations that seem to exist on all of the
mountains encountered so far, and the views were less frequent.
When I had called and booked a B&B in Inistioge for tonight, the
hostess had warned me that there was nowhere to buy food in town
after 6:00pm, so I should get there in plenty of time. Given I
knew it was roughly a 30km day, I was confident that I could make it
in good time, though my third 10km stint of the day seemed to drag
on forever. My feet were tired and the scenery less
interesting, which didn't help.
Eventually, I reached the
historic village of Inistioge about 4:30pm and quickly found the pub
where I had booked a room. Annette, the hostess, spotted me as
soon as I walked into the bar and seemed relieved that I was early.
As it turned out, the only cafe in town was closing at 5:00pm and
not 6:00pm as she had thought. I was really glad I didn't take
any extra breaks in that last 10km. (It seems there are at
least two pubs in the town, none of which serve food.)
I left
my gear in my room, changed out of my boots (always one of the great
moments of each day!), and hastened over to the cafe where I had an
early dinner of the scrumptious fish pie meal of the day before
purchasing a couple of slices for a later dessert. The cafe
owners were very friendly and quizzing me about the coast road
between Melbourne and Sydney, along which their daughter was
currently travelling solo. I tried to be reassuring.
After a shower, I took a wander around the very historic little town
which had a history possibly dating back to St Columba in the 7th
Century, and was likely a Viking village in the 9th and 10
Centuries. An Augustinian priory was established in the 13th
Century and some of the built-over remains can still be seen.
After the walk, I booked my accommodation for the next two
nights. The weather is going to take a turn for the worse with
widespread heavy rain forecast for tomorrow, possibly continuing
over the weekend. Oh well, I've had a pretty good first week
weather-wise. |
|
ADVENTURE LIST
Round Ireland
(2016)
Hume & Hovell Walking Track
(2013)
Via Alpina
(2012)
Australian Alps Walking
Track (2011)
Land's End to John O'Groats
(2010)
Round Oz Bike Record Attempt
(2009)
Round Oz Bike Record Attempt
(2008)
Round Oz Bike Record Attempt
(2007)
Australia Tip to Top MTB
(2006)
Adelaide to Darwin MTB
(2005)
Sydney to Melbourne MTB
(2004)
Three Peaks Race
(2004)
Appalachian Trail
(1986)
Alpine Track
(1983)
|