Outdoor Discoveries

Not a bad weekend…

It’s the sort of time when I might have been off somewhere, braving the threat of showers. However, a bout of flu picked up last weekend in Ireland has meant that staying at home has been the most sensible option. Still, getting grounded with sunny skies outside does wonders for the outdoors enthusiasm, never a bad thing. For one thing, it allows ideas for excursions to foment, and the same could be said for that weekend in Ireland.

Regular visitors will know that my native Ireland has never played host to a proper hillwalking outing of mine to date and that I am always wanting to change that, even if plans have never come to fruition to date. Last weekend’s outing to Killarney was as strong a reminder of that as any. It was anything but my typical outing with it involving a lot of driving and I doing it. My people are not big into walking, but I still managed to get a stroll lasting up to two hours out of the day.

This part of Kerry plays host to a goodly amount of quality hill country, and there’s a very tempting long-distance trail that threads its way though a lot of it: the Kerry Way. As it happened, my short walk wandered along part of the said trail as I plied my way from Muckross House to Torc Waterfall and back again. The day was a grey one, damp at times, but the scenery was nonetheless wonderful; if we had the weather of the preceding and subsequent days, then the appearance of the surrounding landscape would have been next to peerless. I had to leave the tempting track of the old Kenmare road after me, or those with me might have been wondering what happened to me on my brief escape. The amble was a good taster, and I must sort out that proper Irish hillwalking trip…