Leg 26, At 37k an unexpectedly long leg between Pettigoe and the village of Drumquin. My original plan was to get a taxi to the Lough Bradan forest entrance and walk the short 18k leg back to Pettigoe. However, it turns out that getting a taxi firm to even answer the phone the morning after Halloween to just foolish. So plan “B” was that I still left the car in Pettigoe but hiked to Drumquin where I would get a taxi back to my own car. If this all seems a bit torturous I agree, but it turns out that taxis are really only prepared to pick you up in places with real names like Drumquin and not at places consisting of a random jumble of consonants.
It was another day which began with a thick morning mist sticking to trees and skulking in the hollows and dips of the fields, it was reluctant to go but by lunchtime the last remnants had surrendered and evaporated off to leave another beautiful sunny day. The changed priorities sign as you leave Pettigoe likely refers to a single road junction ahead but is actually portentous since the long road out of Pettigoe toward Lough Bradan skirts and crosses the boarder between Donegal and Tyrone many times, it seems on some stretches you are only “abroad” for a matter of meters. In this neighbourhood the alternating change of jurisdiction seems to be of no consequence (though calculating rates might be a challenge) but I was struck by how in more up-tight parts of the country this sort of the thing might send fanatical sectarian groups determined to broadcast their separate culture into paroxysms of anxiety. Left to them this road would stutter and convulse with tricoloured kerb stones, telegraph poles pressed into service as flag masts, corners of fields stacked high with pyres of pallets and tyres, and gable walls emblazoned with murals of soft featured dead heroes and or more anonymous contemporary balaclavaed warriors – in the jumbled national geography of this area it would be possible that the opposite gable ends of the same derelict house would sport alternate sectarian art.
Along the same road I spotted a wonderfully perpendicular outhouse in a roadside property. I think this might accommodate an outside toilet but if it does then is must have the most thoroughly impressive flush imaginable. The 500 gallon overhead cistern could, in under a minute, propel a single bowel movement four kilometres directly to the waste processing service that is the Lough Derg religious retreat centre. Though personally I might be a bit nervous sitting below such a vast quantity of water.
When I reached Lough Bradan forest I knew I was no longer in Fermanagh because the lough to tree ratio switched and I had many many relentless kilometres of trees, and very few bodies of water – responsible campers, walkers and climbers are disciplined not to urinate within 50m of any water course so basically Fermanagh campers have to walk to Tyrone to have a piss. The main crop in this part of the country appears to be Wind, the forest itself accommodates 2 separate wind farms and the distant waving arms of other farms crowd the horizon. I know this technology divides opinion but I don’t mind them and though they might be seen to scar the countryside I would prefer their relatively benign spin to the deeper scars that would attend fossil fuel extraction.
I faced a long drive home at the end of today’s long walk so I was very pleased to receive a text from my friends Carrie, Darryl and Kat offering to supply me with a takeaway dinner when I got home. They were as good as their word and arrived with a pizza the size of a bin-lid. They had had an exhausting day and only just managed to finish their late lunch before having to go elsewhere for afternoon tea then rush to pick-up the pizzas – they are in training for a 63k mountain race next weekend!
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