When I answered a call of nature at 2:30 am, frost was already sparkling in my torch light on the flysheet. My expectation, based on my research, was that the temperature would not drop below 5 deg C. I was somewhat out, maybe due to the clear night skies, dotted with stars. In the far distance a few orange lights wavered by some cottages I had spotted earlier.
There was plenty of frost as I set off a little before 7 am, the dawn hiding the stars but the sun not yet above the horizon. A mist had gathered over the three lakes at the base of the hill, below my camp site, making it look like they were steaming cauldrons. My path into the forestry, when I found it, led me down towards Lough Nacorra just as the orange sun was peeping over the distant hills, colouring the top of the blanket of mist, spread over the lake, a shade of pink. An indescribably beautiful sight, one of those that a long distance walk gives you, but which you cannot predict or plan for.
The trail continued on forest tracks through trees in more mundane scenery, although accompanied by a powerful dawn chorus from the birds, eventually joining a little used road. Above me stood the mountain of Croagh Patrick with its stony mantle and church on top. A place of pilgrimage, for a while I shared my route with a religiously inspired trail to the top. Crossing over a ridge an extensive area of low, uneven land spread beneath me, the sea making an irregular incursion around islands and peninsula, and beyond that, the next range of mountains rose to challenge me.
Walking down quiet lanes I saw a flock of sheep enter a garden and start cropping the lawn. An eager sheep dog followed, and with cries of "cum by" and the like from the trailing shepherd, the collie soon had the flock heading up the lane. Soon after I passed an older gentleman with his dog, cutting back brambles straying onto the lane. I complimented him on his efforts to avoid people being snagged by these viscous shrubs, and he complimented me on my fitness in walking the Western Way.
With contented thoughts and buoyed up by a coffee and banana from a petrol station, I followed the coast road by bays of still water, faithfully reflecting nearby trees and houses. I was now being joined by Sunday morning joggers and a few cyclists. My last stretch before the town of Westport was on a "Greenway". An old railway line, long abandoned, now tarmaced for the use of pedestrians and cyclists, and if the signs were to believed, many types of wild flowers later in the season and birds. Indeed a wren gave me a brief song before flying off.
The main streets of Westport were full of small shops. Several shops had signs encouraging "Charlie" in his climb. Charlie Bird was a well known broadcaster with Irish television. He has been diagnosed with motor neurone disease for which there is no cure. Yesterday he led a climb up Croagh Patrick with many others raising an amazing two million Euros for a motor neurone disease and mental health charity.
I was hoping for a café but thought they would be closed as it was a Sunday. I was wrong, a number were open and overflowing with people. Having selected one that looked slightly less busy, and, becoming frustrated by the three girls in front of the queue, who were having great deliberations as to what to eat, inquiring as to what the vegetarian rashers were made of etc., I avoided a long wait for my food by offering to have a breakfast roll that had been made incorrectly for someone else and had just been returned. Picking it up straight after paying, the lad serving my pot of tea said in a lovely Irish lilt that I had achieved the fastest service anyone would ever get in the café.
Leaving Westport I knew I had to follow the Greenway north, but I was confused. Initially the signs went west and then to the east, and they were Greenway signs not ones for the Western Way. After peering at the internet on my phone for a while I realised that in just a few more yards it would turn west again before settling down in a northward direction. Much of the Greenway to Newport ran beside the busy road and so not especially green, but it made for fast walking through farmland with no risk of a lorry running me over. Some cows gathered to stare at me (on the other side of the Greenway to the road), so I told them to get back to work making Kerrygold (Irish butter). Then I realised they were bulls. Fortunately no-one heard me addressing them.
Arriving at Newport, the blue and yellow flags of Ukraine was on display as well as those of Ireland, evidence of the widespread support for the country bravely fighting the much larger invading Russian Army. My landlord that evening told me that 20 refugee families were staying at B&Bs in the area, while looking for more permanent accommodation. I expressed the hope that the war would soon be over and they could return home, but he said they would have no homes to return to.
As I was settling into my room at an inn, a drizzle began to fall.
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