Christine suggested joining a walking group in order to stay fit and meet new people at the same time, but conveniently, she was away yesterday when I attended the "Easy Level" hike in the area of Hungry Hill, near Bantry Bay. The group meets every Wednesday in a local pub and every second week you can sign up for the Sunday hike. There are different levels; easy, moderate, and occasionally advanced. Yesterday dawned beautifully sunny and I joined the others downtown to arrange car-pooling to the starting point, which turned out to be an hour and a half drive away.
We all gathered at a place called the Rainbow, (one of the orange buildings), for tea and scones before heading out on the next leg, which was another drive of half an hour further. Once at the base of the hill, everyone put on their "gear" consisting of proper hiking boots, waterproof pants, wind/waterproof jacket, walking poles, backpacks containing a small lunch, water, gloves, hats, water, etc.
Of course, I was not completely kitted out, but was quite well prepared.
Our guide for the day, Charlie, set out a quite a fast clip and before long, I was wondering if I had joined the moderate hike by mistake. The elevation rose and we kept going for a couple of hours before reaching a summit of sorts, looking down on a lake. "That's where we'll stop for lunch", our leader announced, and many of us breathed a sigh of relief, but we were in for a bit of a surprise -- there was a bog between us and the lake! Somehow, with my expert instincts for survival, I managed to befriend a man called Eugene, who seemed to know what he was doing and was able to follow successfully in his footsteps to reach the lakeside with relatively dry feet. (Did I mention I was wearing sneakers?
Lunch was very pleasant in a rather wild sense. We all sat on our jackets or plastic bags to keep out the damp and before we got too chilled started out for the return portion of the hike, which is where things started looking less rosy for those (3) of us who weren't properly attired in terms of footwear. We kept 'bogging' happily along to explore what was over the next ridge and the next and so on. Within ten steps I had a soaker and soon afterwards two. So much for the pleasant and manageable portion of the hike. "Oh well", I thought to myself, "My feet are wet, and there isn't much to be done about it, so just keep going!" In the end, I feel this was the best attitude to have embraced for the descent. Oddly enough, I often led the pack on the way down -- completely unintentionally, of course. Here are some views of our descent. Somehow the route we took was unplanned, so there were some rather challenging and slippery spots, but we all rose to the challenge and no one complained.
The views were spectacular. We had a clear view of the Beara peninsula and Bantry Bay. I loved seeing all the sheep wandering around and munching obliviously in our presence. None would get too close, but they tolerated our invasion of their territory.
When one looks down on such a panorama, one truly appreciates the reference to Ireland as being "The Emerald Isle".
We all gathered at a place called the Rainbow, (one of the orange buildings), for tea and scones before heading out on the next leg, which was another drive of half an hour further. Once at the base of the hill, everyone put on their "gear" consisting of proper hiking boots, waterproof pants, wind/waterproof jacket, walking poles, backpacks containing a small lunch, water, gloves, hats, water, etc.Of course, I was not completely kitted out, but was quite well prepared.
Our guide for the day, Charlie, set out a quite a fast clip and before long, I was wondering if I had joined the moderate hike by mistake. The elevation rose and we kept going for a couple of hours before reaching a summit of sorts, looking down on a lake. "That's where we'll stop for lunch", our leader announced, and many of us breathed a sigh of relief, but we were in for a bit of a surprise -- there was a bog between us and the lake! Somehow, with my expert instincts for survival, I managed to befriend a man called Eugene, who seemed to know what he was doing and was able to follow successfully in his footsteps to reach the lakeside with relatively dry feet. (Did I mention I was wearing sneakers?
When one looks down on such a panorama, one truly appreciates the reference to Ireland as being "The Emerald Isle".
Comments
Post a Comment