Ireno Days 5 & 6: Winding Down

Day 5 brought a slight change of plans.

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As you probably remember from Day 4’s report, the previous night’s innkeeper dropped them off at the spot where they ended the day before, after they spent a second night at that inn.

Both Ric and Kit gave Eugene £20 notes for his time and fuel, and they continued on their way.

Tirnony Dolmen

Eugene had pointed out something they should be sure to see early into Day 5’s walk: an example of a Dolmen — tomb structures with standing stones and a horizontal capstone.

“The Tirnony Dolmen is located about 1 mile north of Maghera” in County Derry, says Curious Ireland. “Recently its capstone collapsed and archeologists were given the chance to dig a portal tomb for the first time in 50 years. It dates to 3500 BC and was used for interring cremated bones of selected members of the community. Grave goods such as pottery and flint tools were often left, possibly for the afterlife.

“This type of portal tomb is only found in Ireland, Wales, and Cornwall, so there has long been a debate over where they originated and which portal tombs are the oldest. Archaeologists are hoping to carbon date items found at this site so they can provide an accurate date when it was used.”

The capstone was then repaired and replaced. Crazy! It only lasted 5,000-6,000 years before it needed maintenance! At least they had heavy machinery to help. Bronze Age tribes maybe not so much.

(I did have to chuckle at the proclamation that the tomb “dates to 3500 BC” in the text when even the URL makes it plain that the date is very approximate (c 2000-4000 BC), but sure: thousands of years ago, and archeologists recently got a chance to get some samples to narrow that down.)

Next Stop: Don’t Stop

Inns aren’t that numerous along the way, and they arrived at the next one pretty quickly — about 6 miles past where they were dropped off. So they decided to pause there only briefly and leave their packs to lighten the load, and go a bit farther to look around.

After about a mile and a half, Kit “hit the wall,” she said — her body had had enough for awhile. She decided to sit and rest. She reassured Ric, who still had energy, that she was fine and he could keep going if he wanted, and he could either “pick her up” (not literally) on the way back, or if she felt lively enough before that, she would head back and meet him there.

After a good rest, she did walk back (Edenroe B&B). She got about two-thirds of the way when Martin, the firefighter from the day before, spotted her backtracking as he was driving by, and stopped. He gave her a ride the rest of the way as he was going that way anyway.

I’ll put the mileage count here:

Total Mileage Today: 8.5*. Previous subtotal: 48.7. Running Total: 57.2

*Including the backtracking. Ric certainly counted up somewhat more.

There wasn’t much food available nearby, but there was a takeaway pizza place, so when Ric arrived they brought one to a nearby beer garden (you know, for something to wash it down with). Kit messaged me to say she really needed to rest, and wouldn’t walk Wednesday.

I said that it sounded like the Dolmen was the highlight of the day.

“Actually,” she said, “the highlight for me was realizing I needed a day off from walking.” Why? I asked. “Because I listened to my body and acknowledged what it was telling me,” she said. “It reminded me of my training” for the Camino de Santiago walks.

She didn’t have the time to do any training for this walk. She had done extensive training for the first (500-mile) Camino, and had learned that when her body says “Enough!”, she needs to give it a day off. That message regularly came after 6-7 days long days of walking; with no pre-training for this one, it was a bit on the shorter end. Fair enough!

Day 6

So today, she slept in a bit. Ric headed out, and Kit ended up walking a bit anyway: about a mile to the bus stop by a school, down the road a piece, and then she walked about a mile to get to the next inn: The Belfray Country Inn Hotel (“Comfortable rooms, legenderry [hah!] breakfast”), which is just outside the town of Ardmore.

Ardmore is a special name for Kit. She was born in Colorado, but her father was an oilfield geologist, and the family (including Kit and an older brother) and moved to a new job — in Ardmore, Oklahoma. They didn’t return to Colorado until Kit was part-way through High School …and by then there were two more brothers and a little sister.

With this day off, Kit will be able to walk the last several miles to Derry tomorrow, and has chosen her End Point: the Peace Bridge, a “cycle and foot bridge across the River Foyle in Derry” which was completed in 2011 and connects Ebrington Square with the rest of the city center.

Perfect.

And I’ll be there to greet her. A wrap-up will be posted sometime tomorrow or Friday.

Total Mileage Today: 2*. Previous subtotal: 57.2. Running Total: 59.2

*Ric certainly counted up somewhat more.

Late-Breaking News

The CEO of Villa Vie says he will have some “good news” for us tonight! It won’t be “You can move onto the ship tomorrow,” since they have to re-do part of the Sea Trials on Friday for what I think are stupid reasons. But I may be updating this page in a couple of hours, and this is where I’ll do it….

The Good News Is: All of the outstanding issues (none of which were major) have been cleared. All we need now is for the inspectors to agree and sign the papers on Friday after this is proven to them, which will take several hours of Sea Trials.

Last Updated September 19, 2024
Originally Published September 18, 2024