June 29, 1990: Aghavannagh to Tinahely
A descent on a ride line in the Shielstown State Forest
The skies were gray when we got up on the morning of Friday, July 29th. I was just finishing a shave when Gavan arrived to take a shower. We all met again at 8:30 to heat up some toast and make our sandwiches. I now used the last of the Nescafe Gold Blend that I had been carrying in a medicine bottle. There were several boxes of food in the kitchen this morning and I couldn’t figure out what they were doing there. There seemed to be far too much for any of the parties we had witnessed arriving the night before; why would anyone need three jars of lemon curd? In fact, I helped myself to a little jam from some open containers but then some chap came in and claimed all of this for his party.
The warden gave us cleanup jobs to do before returning my Youth Hostel card. Gavan had to clean the basins in the gents and I had to vacuum our room. In spite of these duties we were able to make a start on another long day’s walk at 9:10. I must say the two young people met all departure targets extremely well; with so many long days it was a great blessing to get under way so soon after 9:00 most days.
We returned to tarmac at the start of the walk, returning to the crossroads and taking another motor road eastward down the valley of the river Ow. A dog came out to see us on our way and this brought his owner as well, but her commands to desist did not seem very effective and Gavan displayed the typical long distance runner’s aversion for the canine species, stopping once in his tracks until the dog retreated. We then re-entered woodland at a fork in the road, descending to a picnic site next to the Iron Bridge.
This we crossed, continuing in a southerly direction still on tarmac, abandoning this at last for a turn up a forest road in Ballygobban State Forest. As we neared the Ballyteague Bridge, however, arrows put us across the stream much earlier than we had expected. Nevertheless we persevered, climbing up the valley gradually under a canopy of tall fir trees in very humid air.
After about a mile we reached a junction – which I believed to be the entry point in the route described by Malone. Although we could be confident that we were once again on the right route there returned here the familiar menace of flies. There seemed to be hundreds about and they took no notice of the repellent I used on occasion. I marched along with the hood of my UCLA sweatshirt up and my Tiger cap over it. Flies, which bothered Gavan and Elizabeth in slightly fewer numbers, bounced off my covered head for an hour or so.
After leaving the road through Shielstown State Forest we followed several ride lines in a southeasterly direction. Then it was back on some forest roads for a descent to tarmac. The road we followed wound around Slieveroe, climbing to a gap between it and Slievemweel. There were now some encouraging views of the plains of County Carlow, our ultimate destination, on our right. It was easy to see that we were leaving behind the mountainous glens of the north in favor of a more pastoral countryside – with fewer summits of significance.
We paused for some of our sandwiches on this road, with our backs up against the white garden wall of a cottage. Elizabeth even took a nap on her back during this pause. It was bright, though not sunny, and the breezes dispersed the last of the flies. We had with us plenty of liquid, including quite a few juice cartons – something we should have had in greater supply on the first two days of the trip.
After lunch we continued upward on the road, passing several farmsteads and enduring the attentions of another hostile dog. Fuchsias, I had noticed, grew wild along such roads, perhaps having made their escape from tame gardens – like the rhododendrons we often encountered. As we rounded a corner we could see our next valley below us but there was some ambiguity about which way to go.
Malone indicates that we should be looking for a steeply descending grassy boreen and that to continue on the road would bring us instead to the village of Moyne. But there was no post at the head of the boreen and so we considered the matter carefully before plunging down it. Moyne was once the southern terminus of the Way, indeed many of the large Wicklow Way signs we had been encountering had the mileage to Moyne in kilometers. “Perhaps the merchants of Moyne have uprooted the post,” I suggested, “so that walkers will continue on into their village.” Gavan was determined to follow the boreen and I agreed; his instincts in these matters were proving to be very good.
Down we bounced and sure enough, at the bottom, there was a post proving that we had made the right choice. We proceeded east for a few hundred yards, then made a sharp right turn to descend to the Sandyford Bridge. We continued walking along the side of a valley for some distance. The others got ahead of me when I stopped for a pee and a photo of some wildflowers. It was one of those sections that turned out to be much longer on the ground than it appeared to be in Malone’s sketch map. It seemed to take forever to reach the old Balleycumber school house, now a dwelling. Here I caught up with Gavan and Elizabeth and together we continued forward around several more twists in the road, descending at last to turn off just before a bridge. A nameless ford was crossed (“I name this Elizabeth Ford,” I said) and we sat down for a rest and some more nosh. I didn’t eat much, amusing myself instead with tossing stones into the stream and speculating on the likelihood of hitting a fish, tiny examples of which we had seen in a number of the streams hereabouts.
While we were seated it started to drizzle a bit. I got up and announced that I would start up the next steep boreen ahead of the others. Shortly after I got started they followed but not before I was startled by the sounds of a running animal, a dog I assumed, scampering along beside me. Instead it was a fox, running along the top of the bank on the left side of the boreen – only a few feet away from me. We had seen several deer in the forests on this trip but I was quite excited to see a fox so nearby. (Later they would be seen every night in the park across the street in Maida Vale.)
Along the bracken-bound boreen near Doctor’s Cross
Gavan and Elizabeth overtook me as we continued up the boreen. This also proved to be a very long stretch. Malone suggests a diversion to avoid a boggy section of this track and we did follow a path in the bracken that paralleled the boreen but soon we were back on its uneven surface, still rising as the rain became heavier. After winding around some stone fence corners we reached a track on top and here I stopped to put on full rain gear. The others did this as well and with all of this concentration on our immediate circumstances neither Elizabeth nor I ever saw the “Doctor’s Cross” – just off route.
Our track, which now gave us views down to Tinahely, our destination for the evening, reached a crossroads where again there seemed to be a conflict with Malone’s version of the route. An arrow pointed downhill while Malone’s sketch map had us keeping our contour through the next stretch of forest, just ahead. We decided to follow the arrow, although this required us to climb two farm gates, not usually an encouraging sign. There was an arrow at the stream crossing, however, and we could soon see that we would eventually be reunited with Malone’s route, travelling however at a lower altitude.
As we rounded the track which led to the highway to Tinahely there were several descending farm roads that seemed to be headed directly toward the town as well. Elizabeth had begun each encounter with rain by welcoming it as a refreshing interlude and disdaining any head cover. But she was now clearly getting dispirited by this afternoon’s steady downpour and wanted to know if we could take any of these shortcuts. Gavan, who had convinced himself that I was deliberately going too slowly on the recent uphill stretches, argued quite convincingly that we could end up on the wrong side of the river below if we did this. So we plodded on to the wooden bridge that forded the river, reaching at last the R747 to Tinahely – still some two kilometers below us to the east.
Murphy’s Hotel, Tinahely
We walked against the traffic on this descent, soon encountering the first of the town’s b&b establishments. In fact, I thought we were scheduled to stay at one of these and called Gavan back to make inquiries. The last thing we wanted to do today was walk by our own b&b, the home of the Murphy’s. Elizabeth even went up to one door to ask directions. In the event, it turned out that the Meehans had booked us into Murphy’s Hotel, not a b&b. Shops appeared on both sides of the road and Gavan went into a small grocery store to buy sweets and get some more directions. We had reached town center and right around the corner from Murphy the butcher was Murphy’s Hotel. It was still raining when we entered its cozy precincts; we had walked another seventeen miles, reaching our destination at 5:45.
We were shown to two rooms next to each other on the first floor landing. Everyone was ripping off wet clothes as soon as our doors were closed. Fortunately there was a warm radiator beneath our window and we got everything dry, even finishing up the last of the drying from our laundry day in Glendalough. Gavan and Elizabeth were soon wandering around the halls with nothing but towels on, startling the other guests as they searched for some warm water. I would have liked a bath but the bathtub itself was occupied by a pair of soaking white overalls. Elizabeth evidently took these out and used the tub but I settled for another shower. I was prepared to replace the tape on my feet every morning so I didn’t mind starting the process by getting my feet wet in the evening. My feet seemed to be blisterless so far but the toenails of the little toes were quite sore from all the bashing. They had just walked 77 miles – already tying a distance record for one trip for me.
We had some drinks in the pub downstairs and went into the dining room at 7:00. I had another steak. The room was filled with a number of people from the village and it was interesting to hear them talk here and in the bar – which we returned to later in the evening. We also went back to the grocery store to get in some snacks and drinks for the next day; they were out of Gavan’s coke bottles.
Elizabeth retired early, and Gavan and I had a nightcap in the pub. Everyone here seemed to know and have a good word for one another and they drank quite a lot of beer in the process. Gavan said that Elizabeth was unhappy that he and she weren’t spending more time together on this trip but I was surprised to hear Gavan, across from me in the darkness of our room, ask if I would hold his hand; he said that this was a family custom, common among men in Ireland, and since he was in the process of adopting me I had to concede.
To continue with the next stage of our walk you need: