On the road...

Hi guys, it's been a while since we wrote anything here so I thought I'd get the ball rolling....

5 members of V5 - myself, Rick, Ethan, Eoin and Colin - along with Ethan's French friend Quentin left Dublin last Thursday afternoon, August 30th, and travelled to Renmore, Co. Galway and stayed overnight there in a scout den. The next morning we hit the road about half ten towards Galway City.

We were hit by strong winds and some heavy rain, but we managed to keep our spirits up and kept a good pace too. We stopped for a while at the amusements in Salthill, and Rick managed to win a shark teddy which the group christened Shnorts (after a member of V5 who couldn't make the trip). In the afternoon we continued on and had lunch in Barna. After the break of about 45 minutes we kept going until our destination of Spiddal, which we reached about 17:00.

Within 5 minutes of arriving, Ethan & Rick secured us the use of a barn to pitch our tents in overnight, as the weather was pretty awful at that stage. This first leg of the walk took about 21 km, and it took its toll on our feet! We grabbed some food downtown, and had a few scoops before we headed back to our tents for an early night before the next leg of walking.

On the Saturday we had packed our gear away by 08:30, grabbed some food at 09:00 and were on the road out of Spiddal by 09:40. Eoin had to leave at this stage, so 5 of us continued on. By midday we reached An Tulach, where we planned to meet two other ventures, Sarah and Laura, who were on an Irish summer course. Unfortunately the place was empty because everyone was in their houses til 15:30, so we got some lunch and made ourselves comfy til they arrived.

After we met them and chatted for a bit we were on the road again at 16:00. We walked on to Ros a'Mhíl where we got a ferry to Inis Oírr at 18:30. We arrived on the island around 20:00 and immediately set up our tents. Then we went looking for some food, and got talking to some of the other visitors on the island. We were in bed by about 01:00, I think... Good night all round!!! Total distance walked for Saturday was about 18km or so.

We were up at 07:50 the next day and packed our gear and tents away. Wr missed our ferry cos it left early for some reason, but we got another one soon enough anyway. We reached Doolin, Co. Clare at around 10:00, and after a quick breakfast we hit the road again. We decided to go off the main road, and we had a quieter day as a result. We were faced with about 45 mins of steep hills at the start of the day, but the view from the top was absolutely spectacular. We had a more or less straight road to our destination of Lehinch, which we reached at about 13:00. The distance was about 15 or 16 km. When we got there we teamed up with Ruairi, who had just driven down to Clare.

After lunch in the town we travelled by car to Kilkee, Co. Clare, where we've been staying since. Photos of the trip will be added in the next week.