Day 85: Wonderful landscape and luck

Day 85 - Saturday, June 23rd 2018: Killeen to Delphi 17 km / Total 1759 km, 16°C, sunny

I had a friendly breakfast, meeting four Germans, doing a six-month internship in Dublin. They all left the city for the weekend. Shane gave me some information about Wexford County where he came from, the best beaches and a bit of history. Then I took the road, a little one, until Cregganbaun. The weather was getting warmer. I expected to get lunch at Glen Keen Farm but it was closed. Despite it was said it's opened on Saturday and they proposed lunch. So I just sat outside, ate some biscuits and dates, reading my book. 

When the sun was less hard, I walked again. It has been one of my favourite roads so far because I finally found the untouched wild nature I was looking for. Delphi Valley is absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, it also has a sad story. In the 1849 winter, 600 starving people gathered in Louisburgh to ask for food. They were said to ask for it in Delphi the day after. So they turned back. Most of them died being cold, exhausted, or hungry, and were buried on the way. I just heard that the road didn't exist at that time, it was built in 1896. An illustration of a famous Irish sentence: "God sent the mildew, but the English (the authority) provoked the Famine".

Despise that sad story, the valley is a landscape of outstanding beauty, with the quiet Doo Lough in the middle and the Mweelrea Mountains on the Westside, and a lovely forest in the "village" of Delphi.

My lucky star was still looking at me, and I started to think the Good Fairy of Luck has been very generous when she was leaning on my cradle. As I was looking for a place to put my broken tent, I found the Delphi Resort which has a hostel building that just opened four months ago. That was totally unexpected. Cheap, modern and clean. I even had a room for myself. And as I was going to the bar to get some wifi, I discovered they had mussels from Killary Harbour. I couldn't resist tasting them and it was delicious!  

How lucky I am! And I slept with the view of the mountain from my bed! Magical!