Day 129: Stones circles and bog

Day 129 - Tuesday, August 14th 2018: Kilmakilloge to Ballycrovane 24 km / Total 2669 km, 18°C, cloudy

After a very peaceful night, I really enjoyed taking my breakfast with the view even if the sky was full of low grey clouds. It was quite windy, which is a good thing to dry my tent, and means fresh air for walking. 

The first kilometres were through the woods again, and I really enjoyed it: no cars, no one, only trees. It was wonderful.

In Lauragh, I decided to get some extra breakfast with a scone and a berry crumble which was delicious. A man who organizes biking trips in the peninsula asked me if I was walking the Beara Way. A little bit more than that. So I explained my trip. He told me it was amazing. And when I came back from the bathroom, I found two slices of cake which I didn't order on my table. The man offered it to me, as fuel for my walk. Thanks a lot!

Then I decided to walk the Beara Way for the next section. I had to climb a little bit up to the mountain, and as the sun appeared for a moment, I discovered two stones circles. I put my hands on the biggest stone in the middle, and as you can read me, I didn't travel through time!

Then the walk got down, climbed and got down again. I must have missed one of the yellow marks on the trail, as the path suddenly reached the border of a field. I finally found the exit and was back on the Ring of Beara, where I entered Cork County. Before arriving in Ardgroom, I walked a little road, where I saw an old man with a bag full of blackberries he was collecting, and he gave one to me.

After a break with a warm soup and a delicious toffee apple cake, I walked the last part of the day, still on the Beara Way, which crossed a bog area along Lough Fadda. The bog was a little bit wet and the path not really well marked. I mean I had to look for the flat grass in front of me to see where was the path and follow the trace of the last person who had been walking there. I just wondered if in spring, how the first person walking the trail can find it if the grass isn't already flat? Fortunately, it was not cloudy, only softly raining, so I could see the yellow mark along the trail. At some point, I found a seagull, freshly killed, as there was fresh blood. I wondered how it got killed. A fox maybe? I always asked myself the same question when I found sheep bones sometimes. As there's no predator in Ireland, no wolf, it can only be a fox?

As I left the bog area, I was back on a little road, with the rain. It took me two more kilometres before I could find a hidden and flat place for my tent. Unfortunately, there was no network, so I didn't know exactly where I was. I mean, I knew where I was on my map, but not the name of the place, and couldn't calculate how many kilometres I had walked on that day, how many until the next food point the day after and until my hostel. And I couldn't even check the weather!