After a lovely breakfast, served by our B&B hostess in Annascaul, we set out on another cool, overcast but dry morning. The first miles of the walk were pleasant and easy, mostly along dry farm roads. It rained on us only once, long enough to convince us to put on the raincoats, and then, of course, the rain stopped and the raincoats come off.
Before long we descend to find ourselves approaching the water and one of the many ruins you find in the Irish landscape, Minard Castle. What’s left looks more like a tower or fortification than an actual castle, but its setting is so picturesque, looking out over the water. It’s fenced off now, with signs warning us that it’s a dangerous structure to enter. We keep our distance and take our pictures.
Kate, our B&B Hostess in Anascaul, told us to look for a place she called “Kate’s Cross” just a little beyond Minard Castle. We might find a snack, if it’s open when we arrive on this Sunday morning. We were happy to find Kate’s Cross open and enjoy a rest with tea and coffee outside on the picnic bench, but it was starting to rain so we wanted to move on. As we did, the group of six women from two days ago came along. We joined them and walked along with Barbara, the group’s organizer, sharing information about our hikes. She and Sara chatted and traded contact information. Soon they walked off for their rest stop in Lispole, while we walked on.
We’re back on farm roads again, and it’s getting very muddy. Thank God for Gore-Tex. This mud is especially nasty as the farm animals seem to prefer the roadway for their latrine. Their contributions range from generous green cow droppings to the many smaller black droppings from sheep and goats. We have to keep looking down to see where next to plant our feet. We seek out the solid rocks away from the droppings. But we can be fooled. Sara reached intentionally for one “rock” that was not. It took a while to clean the brown and green goo from her boots.
The walking became more challenging as the route sent us up the mountainsides again, walking through very uneven fields populated largely by sheep, bushes, rocks and grass. Stone walls cover these mountains. They ranging in height from two to five feet, sectioning off the mountain. We walk right through the fields along with the sheep. From one field to another we may have a gate to open, but usually it’s a stile to cross. The stiles along the Dingle Way are usually like a stepladder: we climb up one side and down the other. The sheep can’t seem to manage this.
Eventually we came out of the sheep fields and onto a road. The six women caught up with us, as did another larger group of hikers up from Dingle town. As we walked on, the town of Dingle and the Dingle Bay came into view. As we walked into town, we looked up to find the sign for Ashes B&B, our reserved home for the next three nights, right over our heads.
After settling in at the B&B, we walked the few blocks down to the town. We asked again about live music in the pubs and heard the same story: no music in pubs unless outside in an open beergarden. Happily we did find one pub, An Droichead Beag, with an outside beergarden and music, so we sat for a bit. An older man playing guitar beautifully accompanied a young woman with a lovely voice. It wasn’t traditional Irish music (“Trad” as it is called here), but their versions of known songs were in a quieter acoustic mode. Sara tried the local Irish whiskey, from the “Dingle Whiskey” distillery right in town, and Evan drank his Guinness. We thoroughly enjoyed this evening.
