Friday

Best day so far, all three of us have agreed...

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I searched the woods at Kilworth for a stick, finally selecting a fine pine staff. Stick in hand, feeling like a proper traveler, we plunged into tracks through thick coniferous trees. It's amazing how having a stick in your hand makes you feel so much more able to deal with things.
An attempt at a short cut across a maze of forestry trails resulted in me becoming pleasantly misplaced. The rattle of machine gun fire drifted lazily through the morning air, from the Ballybeg and Mitchelstown direction. Following shortly after came about thirty army men and women on a fast march over the hill. They didn't seem to know much more than me about our location from what I could gather...

The walking all day was superb. I didn't meet another single walker and barely laid foot on roads. Progress was made along green roads, dirt tracks and woodland, all far from the busyness of life below us. The crisp air revealed the clear outlines of fertile valleys and gentle hills stretching as far as I could see; a far cry from the roaring Atlantic, jagged sea cliffs and high mountains of Kerry and West Cork.

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Later in the afternoon I emerged from a muddy field to find two men wrestling with a tractor, cow and two freshly born calves. As Bob hopped through the hedge behind me, their incredulous reaction was the best I've come across yet. Once the laughter died down I was offered a lift in the tractor box down to their house for a cup of tea.

Tom and Mike were the farmers and Mary was their mother. As we drank through several silver pots of strong tea, Mary kept bringing more and more food to the kitchen table; fresh ham and crusty white bread, soda fruit cake fresh from the cooker, apple tart made earlier that day and pink wafer biscuits.

The dipping sun reminding me I had a couple of hours hiking left, I made my goodbyes. About 5pm that afternoon I arrived at the Hickey's; a large farmhouse B&B set on the Blackwater Way. Tom Hickey seemed to be on the lookout for us and instantly had water and food organised for the hungry animals, while I restrained them from Tom's peacocks.

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Later that evening Eileen cooked us a fine beef dinner, along with more apple tart, while their daughter's 21st birthday plans were discussed.