Camp to Annascaul 17km

A wonderful wild day on the Wild Atlantic Way.

We were itching to go but had to wait to get the first bus from Tralee to Camp which was at 11.00 am. You can walk the 18km but we will be walking it on the way back so most people get the bus. At 11.30 we were in Camp and so happy to be underway at last. The first 2 km were a steady climb to a pass in the Slieve Mountains. We would call these hills as the highest peak is only at about 800 metres and the pass about 300 metres. Over the pass it was blowing a gale, about 40km/hr into our face and we had some very heavy showers. But we didn’t mind we were just so happy to be out in the countryside and walking.

Most of the day was on open farmland with horned, and black faced sheep and a few herds of cows. We saw some fields with peat being carved for fuel, with low dark cuttings carved into the moorland and left to dry. The only forest we passed through was a small conifer one with quite young trees. Big enough to protect us from the wind for a while. For the first part of the day we were basically crossing over the spine of the Dingle Peninsular from Tralee Bay to Castlemaine Harbour. After two and a half hours we arrived at Inch which has a beautiful long beach and is where the beach scenes in the epic movie Ryan’s Daughter were filmed. Today the wind was so strong everything and everyone was blasted with sand. We were feeling really battered by the wind and stopped in a cafe for some shelter and respite.

From Inch, having cleared sand out of our ears, eyes, nose, teeth etc we went inland and over a small saddle to the village of Annascaul, where we are tonight at Annascaul House. We only walked 17km but it felt an awful lot further after bashing into the wind all day. The surface underfoot was good. A mixture of sealed narrow roads, gravelled farm roads and stony or grass tracks. No mud or bogs so far. A few gates to get through and two stiles to climb over. The signage was great. No chance of getting lost. There weren’t any other walkers on the bus this morning but during the day we saw quite a few others. Not as busy as the Camino but we are not walking alone.

A wild day but just so good to be on the move.