Day 73: When everything goes wrong

Day 73 - Thursday, June 7th 2018: Ballycroy to Mulranny 16 km / Total 1565 km, 23°c, sunny

Awful attack by the midges as I got out of my tent in the morning. Jacket, hat, bandana on my face, repellent as much as I can, move and act quickly. A nightmare.

And as I was shaking my tent to clean it and make the midges go away, I heard a crack. Oh no, no, no! One of the arches broke! 

I hardly finished packing my tent and left the area as quickly as possible, to find shelter at the National Park visitor centre, thinking of how bad my situation was. In the middle of nowhere, with a broken tent. This trip isn't possible without a tent, because, as I said, there's not always accommodation every 20 km (and not to mention the price). And with all the midges in the area, impossible to sleep outside without a tent, not to mention the rain.  

So, the first thing to do, find accommodation for the night. The next hostel was 20 km away in Achill. I sent them an email to make a booking for the night.

The visitor centre opened at 10 am, and it was only 8:45 am when I reached it. As I was going to sit on a bench outside and wait, a man working in it saw me and asked if I was not too much in trouble with the midges. As I said it's a nightmare, he invited me to come inside even if it was not opened, to avoid being bitten by the midges. He told me I could use the bathroom and made me tea and scone, and while my phone was charging, we talked a little bit. In fact, he's French too but has been living in Ireland for 20 years, after selling the company he created because the French administration was asking for too many documents, which was not the case when he opened his luxury B&B in Connemara. Now he's living in Mayo, which landscape reminds him the Russian steppes. Well it's true here it can look like Mongolia according to me, it's as empty. But most of all, he explained to me how to avoid the midges: they don't like the sun and the wind, so as long as I stay on the coast, close to the sea with a little breeze, I won't have trouble. But at sunrise and sunset, when it's wet and misty, there's a lot of them. I understand now the attack this morning when I got out of my tent, in a wet fog with no wind at all. And I'm too much in the inland. Unfortunately there are midges in Donegal County, Mayo, Galway County (Connemara) and Kerry, until September. Ok, so apart from Clare County, I'll have to deal with them for the whole summer!

Then I walked as fast as I could to Mulranny. The landscape started to change, I got closer to the sea and mountains, and it was even greener. Just before Mulranny, it was really beautiful! And from Mulranny, the view was great on Clew Bay. It was good to see another bay. As the hostel didn't reply to me, I called them (I don't really like to make a phone call, as I'm not always sure to understand the Irish accent). In fact, due to some problem, the hostel was closed. And the nearest was 28 km away. As I had already walked 16kms to Mulranny, it was not possible to reach it.

Ok, let's find lunch and another solution. I bought ice cream at the local shop and sat on a bench in front of the sea. A man with a bicycle stopped close to me and looking at my bag and my ice cream told me I must be a rich backpacker to eat much ice cream (it was a cola water ice cream because I don't like ice cream with cream inside, only the water one). Well, I don't know if I'm rich (I'm not poor of course, I'm from one of the richest countries in the world, so I'm definitely not poor), but I'm having a bad day, the weather is hot, I need some comfort food. As he asked where I was walking to, I explained what I was doing here. Then he asked when was my last shower. Last Monday morning, so four days ago. And he told me, once he couldn't get a shower for 21 days as he was cycling in Australia. Well, my situation isn't so bad actually. He told me to use an application for bikers, named "Warm Shower". It's like "Couchsurfing" but for bikers and despite I was a walker, due to my specific trip, I could use it too. His name was Trevor by the way, and I thank him for the advice.

Unfortunately, there was no one available on the app in the area. So I had to book an expensive B&B on Booking.com, which was said to be 800m away. I walked there, and no B&B. I checked on Google Map and in fact, it was 6 km away from Mulranny, in Newport direction, while my next step should be Achill Island! Oh no! 

I had to hitchhike to get there as it was not my direction, and a guy quickly gave me a lift.

The B&B was ok, along a big and noisy road, with a pub downstairs, and with noisy people until 1:30 am. But at least, I had a bed, a shower, no midges, and could try to fix my tent as best as I could.