Leg 29, A long 34k from Gortin to Moneyneany in mist and a drizzle that had no ambition to ever become actual rain but hung around all day like a bored teenager pissing everybody off. The first 20k of the route is strikingly linear along the length of the Glenelley valley mostly using minor roads but paralleling the main B47. The last 10k is a more challenging waymarked trail over the boggy bulge of Crockbrack and Crockmore. As with many of the open-country parts of the Ulster Way navigating over these hills in mist and fading daylight ought not to be attempted by anyone not competent in map/compass navigation – there is something very comforting about coming upon a waymark post on a mist engulfed hillside and headlights on even the most unlovely and remote road are a welcome sight at the end of a long damp day.
The landscape around here has an old-fashioned rural gentleness to it, full of winding streams, zig-zaging lanes, and small fields sympathetically shaped to the contours of the land. In places this it can look impossibly artificial as though designed by a Hobbit, Telletubby or an Irish Tourist Board publicity hack. But the regular appearance of a derelict house and the occasional rusting Ford Fiesta on breeze blocks reassures that this is a real location.
My friend Karn was with me today and so as we tramped along I received an education on sheep – breeds, husbandry, management and care, marketing and sale. All of which I enjoyed though occasionally as she moved with enthusiasm onto sheep diseases and the effects of sarcoptic mange mite I would have to distract her by feigning the sighting of an ostrich or a water buffalo – or not feigning a retching stomach convulsion (squeamish townies, eh! What are we like?).
Didn’t see many people all day: one man trying to dismantle a scaffolding tower using nothing but the power of swearing and a hammer the same size as is made available on buses to break windows in case of emergency and a car driver unable to reverse her trailer into a yard opting instead to drive the long way round via Dungivin and take another run at the yard gate 10 meters behind her (the ram in the open trailer she was pulling could only look forlornly back at fields full of ewes as she pulled away).
We came across an instance of the country practice of hanging a dead fox over a fence to drive off the other foxes – though as Karn noted, the fact that there were 2 corpses rather undermined the effectiveness of the practice. I’m not sure what to make of the pile of tyres threaded over a 4m pole at the base of a steep grassy bank, I choose to take it as evidence of some giant version of quoits played by the real men of Tyrone.
A some point over the top of the hills I passed the 500 mile mark on my hike. Now, I have to ask myself: would I walk another 500 for no better reason that to be the man who falls down at Fern’s door? On balance, No. But I am prepared to walk another 124 for that purpose and also to squeeze another few quid in donations for the Huntingtons Association Virgin Money Giving | Fundraising | Brendan Major versus the Ulster Way
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