*****

Where Am I?

In Killarney, at a B&B, catching up on blog writing.  

I arrived in Kenmare by taking the train from Dublin to Killarney, getting in at about 1:30.  The train ride was fine, not a ton of scenery, but quiet so I was able to read for a bit.  

As soon as I stepped off the train, my feet were itching to go.  But I had to visit a grocery store first for dinner that night, and some food for the next day.  The local Tesco’s had a good selection of simple healthy hiker foods so I stocked up.  But in a foretaste of things to come, I realized later that I had lost one of the rubber tips for my hiking poles.

After finally setting off, I was quickly at and then past the official start of the Kerry Way near the Killarney Tourist Office, opposite Killarney House. 

I sailed along the path beside the busy roadway, with Sunday tourists out in force on a nice day.

It’s about a 4 km walk to reach the entrance to Killarney National Park, through which the trail traverses. Soon I was staring at stunning views over Mucross Lake towards the hills.

After a quick but much-needed pit stop at one of the Park’s conveniences (a thousand flowers of blessing upon the inventor of the toilet), I joined a steady stream of day hikers climbing the path to the Torc Waterfall.  It’s beautiful, I assume, though I couldn’t see it as it was meant to be, unadorned with selfie grabbers.

The climb up past the waterfall is steep, about 100m in total, but after that I was out past the last of the day trippers and onto the trail proper.

I walked at a good pace on fresh legs and feet, anxious to find a camping spot.  I’d spent more time than I had planned to get to this point.  It was past 5 pm as I approached the edge of the forested area.  My original thought had been to camp just inside these woods, near the Owengarrif River, which on satellite pics looked doable.  

In practice however the ground was too uneven, a foretaste of what I was to encounter along much of the trail – the right combination of sheltered, level, dry, and off the trail was elusive much of the way, as I was to find.

But I did settle on a spot after searching a bit, an old sheep pasture with a lovely view, and set up camp there for the night.

After an eventful night (more on that later), I woke to rain and slogged the next day, soaked and grumpy, into Kenmare.

A hot Irish breakfast and strong pot of tea did wonders, reviving me enough to find a nice B&B that was right beside the trail just outside of town, and I checked in there to change out of and dry my sopping clothes.   The first 2 nights had given me a wet intro to my journey.

Stories Along The Way

As I have learned on my travels in the past, trail angels come in all forms.  The first on this journey was Fionnulla, at the Kenmare B&B,  who let me put my wet boots, pack, and socks in the boiler room to dry out, and took my wet sweat pants and threw them in the dryer.  Between that, and judicious use of the hair dryer, I had all my stuff dried off ready for the next day.

*****

Right near the start of my journey, about 2 km out of Killarney, I met Chris, a Kerry Way thru hiker who was just finishing.  As we sized up each other, I realized he and I were pretty similar – same build, same age, same #HikerDude fashion sense, even similar Osprey packs.  

We chatted for a bit, and he remarked about how wonderful the trail is. “You’ll love it”, he said. I walked away feeling pretty good about myself – if he was about my age and had just solo walked it, then it should be no problem.  Right?

*****

As I said, I had an eventful first night, on my seemingly lovely bit of sheep pasture.  

By the time I had set up my tent, made dinner, and climbed into bed, it was about 8 pm.  The skies were clear and there was no wind to speak of.  Still, I had made sure to place two bracing guy lines on the tent plus added two extra side pegs.  I drifted off to sleep thinking, “I should be ok”.

I woke up at about 10:30 to the sound of rain against the tent, driven by moderate winds.  I fell back asleep, only to be awakened at about 3:30 am by the side of the tent slapping my face.  The wind had picked up tremendously, and the whole thing was shaking.  I reached out and checked the corners from the inside – all seemed secure so far.

After that, I just lay awake, weighing up my options.  The tent was taking a pounding but it was holding, in part because my weight lying on the tent floor was helping to provide stability.  It was still dark at 4, and at 4:30, and finally a predawn twilight crept in around 5.  I could see that things were holding, but the wind wasn’t just refusing to ease, it was getting fiercer, as was the lashing rain.  

I was tempted to make a run for the trail, about 200 meters up the sloped pasture, but packing up my gear and taking down the tent in that gale was foolish.  Better to wait it out.

Suddenly, a corner peg let go, followed by one on the side holding the vestibule. I snatched a couple of spare pegs from my pack and stretched out on the wet ground to grab the snapping fabric, jabbing the corner peg in as best I could, and wrestling with a flapping peg strap to get the other one in.  But that held for just a minute or two and then it was loose again and crackling wildly, like a blown out sail in a gale.

It was clear that I couldn’t hold the tent down with my hands from the inside, the wind kept tearing it from my grip. I risked losing it altogether if another peg went, so I decided to make a run for it. I turned from madly stuffing my gear into the pack to see that one of my trekking poles, which is used to support the tent, had come loose from the grommet which should have held it and had punctured the tent fabric. 

Yanking out the trekking pole while trying not to tear things further, rolling on the wet ground out of the tent dragging my pack, and simultaneously trying to hold onto the tent fabric, was a slow motion nightmare. Somehow I gathered up the sopping fabric and stuffed it into the pack, trying to count the pegs as I pulled them out.  

I was missing 3 but thought myself lucky it wasn’t worse. As it was I had to stumble across the uneven ground in untied boots to catch my pack cover before the gale whipped it off into the gloom.

Then came a slipping, sliding, soaking climb back up to the trail, more panic-driven than I want to admit.  I couldn’t find the spot in the stone wall around the pasture that led out the way I’d come down, so I searched frantically for a path through thickets of prickly gorse, sloshing through boggy puddles which filled my boots to the brim with muddy water.

At one point I took a wrong step into a hole and lost my balance, falling face first into the muck.  “Slow down and think!”  I struggled back to my feet, checked make sure both boots were still on, and kept moving upwards, panting through grasping gorse and snagging brambles, at last nearly falling to the ground when I finally reached the trail.

Taking a deep breath – “slow down dummy!” – helped me to regroup. I realized I was still wearing my sleep pants, just cheap cotton sweats, and they were soaked. My light windbreaker was saturated and my clothes underneath were wet to the skin.  I couldn’t change clothes there, but I could and did empty a pool of water from each boot before lacing them up properly.

And since there was no way I was crawling back to Killarney with my tail between my legs, I turned towards Kenmare, slipping and sloshing with each step.  Finally, about a km or two later, I found a semi-sheltered spot where I could take a breather, eat something, change out of my wet sweats into my hiking pants, take off my socks and wring them out, and generally get a grip on myself.

After that, I relaxed a bit.  I wasn’t in any immediate danger, I was relatively warm even though sopping, and Kenmare was only about 15 km away.  I trudged through gradually diminishing rain and winds, until just a misty mizzle remained to ensure I stayed wet all the way into town.

A hard lesson that could have been worse.  But I made it through.  What would the Trail bring next to test me.

Where to Next?

From Kenmare, I continued to follow the Kerry Way – Blackwater Bridge, Sneem, Waterville, and Cahersiveen were up next.