Despite the uneven ground, the best I could find on a wet, hummocky moor, I slept well, albeit in the same position all night, the only vaguely comfortable one wrapped around tussocks of grass hidden beneath my groundsheet. Windy but no frost this morning, and the day was generally dry even if the overcast sky spoilt the dawn.
Streetlights were still on in some distant town as I headed over a hill on a minor road. Although the first forests I went through were fenced off and uninviting, later woods might have made a passable camp site. However you never know what is coming up when looking for a place to pitch and I was soon in farmland that would have been unsuitable. Houses, mostly looking modern or in good condition, dotted the roadside in a sporadic fashion alternating with fields of sheep. Lambs were playing together, frolicking about in the fields ("gambolling" is the usual word used), still in their curious stage they came up to look at me. I stopped, thinking to photograph them. This alerted their mothers, who came over calling them back, and giving me a confrontational stare. I noticed the lambs and sheep had numbers sprayed on them, I suppose so the farmer knew which lambs belong to which sheep.
In my imagination the Mountain Inn in Coolaney had been an old, stone built affair among the foothills. Reality was a modern building on the plains, although mountains could be seen to the north (I was surprised the Sligo Way did not run along the mountain ridge, maybe landowner permission was an issue). The Inn was a cream colour similar to the surrounding houses (and church), giving the settlement a fresh, new appearance. It was also closed (although a smell of bacon cooking came from somewhere). My desires were however met by a shop near the centre of the village with a coffee machine. I drank my latte and ate my banana and hot cross bun on a stone wall by a Sligo Way noticeboard in a little square. Really I should have followed the Riverside trail but instead walked down the main street in search of coffee (my first for 48 hours).
Based on my map I had reconciled myself to walking on roads all today, but there was one stretch of "Greenway", a gravel path with low contorted trees beside it, and also primroses for a stretch. Later a busier road ran beside an abandoned railway line for a short way, some of the rails still in place. The council needs to convert it into a Greenway as well, before the adjacent landowners grab it.
After two nights wild camping and no immediate prospect of anything else for a while, I decided to catch the train for the short ride from Collooney to Sligo, where there were plenty of places to stay. I managed another takeaway coffee (and an over-baked mini Bakewell tart stuffed with berries) before the train arrived to whisk me away to the big city.
Sligo was a place to shop for food for the next few days. I also needed more batteries, my GPS ran through a pair off AA batteries in just half a day, whereas they usually last four days (maybe it was the cold, or the effect of condensation). I also visited the ruined 13th century Abbey and looked at the wall paintings around the town related to Yeats the poet. He spent much of his childhood here and the area inspired his poetry.
Over an evening meal at a "Gastropub" by the fast flowing river that ran through the town, I pondered on the next few days. I had been unable to find accommodation and it was not the best country for wild camping....
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