My European Adventure: The Peninsula's Edge

I was awakened by the sound of rain. I was a little spooked because I wasn't sure how I would do in it. However, I stayed warm and dry in my bivy and sleeping bag. It didn't rain long. As soon as it stopped I set out for more hiking around the Dingle peninsula. Since I was so early, I got to meet some of the locals herding cattle down a path I was led to. Every few kilometers or at most forks in the road there are posts with a symbol of a little person with a backpack and an arrow pointing you to which way to go. In some instances there was no such sign to be found and I guess they thought you'd figure out the obvious route. Well, whenever an answer is obvious, I struggle finding it more so. Sometimes the arrows were vague, too. Either way, a few wrong turns didn't hurt too bad. As I was saying, the arrows led me to a path that was occupied by cattle. So I stood and chatted with a lady about Ireland and USA. She has cousins in Chicago and they visit often; however, she has never visited them. I told her how beautiful I thought Ireland was and she said she doesn't think anything of it, she was born here.

The backpacker path for a long while was merely a path anyone would take along the countryside. However, after coming around a leg of the peninsula to the south-western part, it separated from the road and the houses. It sharply led up the steep part of the mountain to join the black-faced rams. It led higher and higher from the road and the houses and the view got more spectacular all the time.

After a very steep climb, I came to a landing. There were no little person with backpack signs. None! Ahead of me a fence was partly torn down to easily climb over and to my left no fence, but a steep, rocky path. I chose the steep rocky path. Immediately a cloud covered the sunshine and began to hail very hard. I thought I must have chosen the wrong path. However, I didn't want to turn back so I kept going. Finally, I saw a sign with a backpacker on it! I was very relieved. The path led all the way down to the road and from there I walked to a Café and had a huge meal. It took me about the length of the movie Ryan's Daughter to finish it. They were playing the movie on repeat since the movie was filmed on the Dingle peninsula.

The rest of the day was lots of walking to the edge of the peninsula's "heads" and taking a good look around. Every extension of the peninsula had a different head name: Slea head, Dunmore head, Clogher head... I made it all the way around to another beach and camped out there.