John Sigler's Blog: October 2008

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Everything is still good...

All said, things are going as planned. I'm off to the Hill of Tara on the 30th, as every Samhain (October 31, Halloween) the "druids" light fires on all the hilltops of Tara, and then I'll stay on that side of the island for about another week. A fellow in couchsurfing is putting me up for a few days in Navan, and then I may go down to Dublin for a few days.

However, all this resolution and stuff isn't preventing me from doing stupid things either. One of the things I've invested in is a good pair of walking/hiking boots, a good rain coat, and rain pants. So, to test all of this out, I got the stupid idea of taking the first leg of the Dingle Way Trail:

It was lightly raining with a brisk breeze, but didn't seem all that bad so I took off. In Blennerville, everything still seemed to be okay. I even caught an Irish rainbow:

The goal was to make it to an old abandoned stone village and the ruin of an ancient oratory, not far from the town of Camp. What I didn't realize is that the path is about 600m (or about 1800ft) higher than sea level (where we are at), that it was along the sides of mountains and that the "trail" was mostly just a line of loose stones, that of course are very slippery when wet and even more unstable since the ground turned to mud. Further, the direction I was going put a constant wind (hard enough to blow you over), that was carrying a LOT of rain, directly in my face the whole time. So what would have been maybe a four hour hike in good conditions turned into a gruelling six hour death march (or so it seemed at least). Further, I didn't realize it would be 20km long...

Yes, I did make it to the spooky abandoned village and the oratory...

Further, my boots are great, despite the march and being brand new I didn't even get a blister. The rain gear was all pretty good as well. I walked back to Tralee along the main road (in the dark).

Friday, October 17, 2008

17 October 2008: Today I rode to the top of a Irish mountain

As part of my whole practice thing, today the goal was to go to the top of one of the nearby mountains, the one with all the radio antennas on it.

So first I rode out to the sea, then through Blennerville, a little hamlet outside of Tralee, and the the rest of the way it was just very small, narrow country roads. Paul showed me the route before I left, but my only real land mark affirming that I was on the right road was Scotia's Grave.

As some of you probably know, what is today Scotland was actually called Pictland previously, being inhabited by Picts. The Picts were native Celtic Britons that never fell under Roman rule. [Pop culture refernce: think of Pink Floyd's song "Several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a Pict" off Umma Gumma]. Anyway, the Scots were Irish invaders that began colonizing south western Pictland and soon took over the whole damn place; thus Scotland.

Although in reality this process took several centuries, in Irish legend the invaders were led by one Queen Scotia, who is apparently supposed to be buried here in Kerry for some reason. So as Scotia's Grave was my one big land mark, I was happy see the sign for it:

So I opted to pull off and take a look, but just saw a whole lot of nothing:

Where's Scotia - to the left:

Where's Scotia - to the right:

I spent a few minutes looking around for some trace, but saw nothing and knowing that I had to make it to the top of the mountain, I just moved on. Later I learned that you have to hike down some ravine and then it isn't all that once there. However, no knowing what to look for or where to look, I could have spent the rest of the day wandering around aimlessly; so I made the right decision.

And off I went the rest of the way up the mountain. I just kept going until the road turned downward, going down the otherside. There was a small parking area there where I took a break before coming back to Tralee:

The radio towers from the top of the mountain:

The view south, toward Killarney was simply breathtaking and this crappy photo does it no justice at all:

And Tralee, where I had come from, from the top of the mountain:

I am very tired and going to sleep now...

12 October 2008: Resolution on the bike thing

So today I went riding again and although I didn't really do much better than before, I did make up my mind about whether or not to go biking or walking. The determining factor was that it became patently obvious that I was using an entirely different set of muscles for cycling than I was for walking. If I am walking and just get disgusted with it, I am more or less just stuck where I am. However, if I'm cycling and just get disgusted with it – as happened the other day – then I can always just hop off the bike and walk it. While walking the bicycle sort of sucks, I don't think it would suck any worse than walking with a backpack full of crap. So, yes, I am cycling with the proviso that I reserve the right to just hop off and walk the bike when I feel like it.

Anyway, on 3 November, they are doing some event at Tara and I want to be there. From here to Dublin is about 200 miles and I think I want to give myself some leeway so I'm going to set off about 13 days in advance. If I were walking, the walk would take about 10 days averaging 20 miles a day. With the bike, it should be much quicker; but I've never been to that part of Ireland anyway, so if I'm there earlier and for a longer time, nothing much is lost.

So now the goal is to get my bike and all ready to go. There are certainly some things I need to do and to learn, but I have a couple weeks so we'll see.

Tomorrow is the big moving day, so that should be long and hard. So it is to bed early tonight and up early tomorrow.

10 October 2008: Walking to Ballyheigue

Yesterday I walked up to Ballyheigue and back as promised, so about 26 miles. It was a fairly gray and overcast day, but the walk to was pleasant enough, although it took four hours. Part of that was because I took the wrong road and added about 6 kilometers to the walk that was uncalled for. The walk back, however, was a total pain in the ass. The wind was blowing off the sea directly into my face and then the rain started. However I think it would have been much better had I had been wearing proper walking shoes or boots and had some rain gear on. As it was, it totally sucked. However, it would have sucked just as much on a bicycle.

The real downside to the walking was it was just so damn slow. Paul said he could do the same trip, following the same route, in about two hours instead of four, so in half the time. This I believe.

On the upside though, the walking was completely stress free. That is, it was comfortable – but slow.

So I am going to go back to the bicycle for a couple of days before making up my mind on which way to go. We'll see.

8 October 2008: Is cycling the best way?

The second trip out to Fenit was completely shitty. Early in the morning it was raining, not a little Denver shower but full on lashing, this meant the trip started off badly. Then after the rain slackened off some, the wind started blowing making it a real pain in the ass to cycle. Of course, due to the time of year I knew this was coming and frankly there is a lot more of this to come, but if I were on foot I'd still be moving forward, whereas with the bike it was a remarkable pain in the ass.

After I made it to Fenit, it was still cold and windy; so I wanted to stop in at this little hotel bar to get a drink and a bite to eat, but there was no where to chain the bike, like no where at all, I just set off coming back. Along the way I came across a pretty nice restaurant/pub called "The Tankard" (that later I learned that Paul had worked at as head chef for about a year). So I chained up the bike, went in, got a pint and some food. While there, I met a couple Germans who were travelling around backpacking (walking, hitchhiking, and so on). As we were chatting, they were telling me all about their trip and adventures and it sounded exactly like what I'd like to be doing.

Finally I got back to Paul's place very tired and discouraged.

My original idea was to be backpacking anyway. However, talked me into going on a cycle, pointing out – very accurately – that it is much faster. An hour of good cycling can be on par with a day of walking. Further, you can carry a lot more stuff with you much easier. As an extension of the speed, it is also likely to be cheaper since I would be more inclined to just zip through places along the way, whereas on foot I'd be more inclined to stop.

On the down side, I am not a very confident bicyclist; I only barely know what the hell I am doing and don't consider fun at all, but gruelling work. This would obviously improve with more practice. There is also a significant learning curve involved with cycling; how to fix anything and everything that can – and probably will – go wrong with the bike. Though I have no doubt I could learn all of this. And finally there is the whole security issue. A backpack I can take almost anywhere I can go, and can easily find a place to lock it up when I don't want to carry it; whereas for a fully loaded bike with all the bags and things, basically it seems like it would be an incredible pain in the ass any time I am not actively cycling. This completely defeats the purpose of the trip since cycling isn't the goal, but just a mode of transportation to get me to where I want to be.

Backpacking – walking, hitchhiking, and the occasional train – would be slower and probably more expensive (just more opportunities to stop and thus spend money), BUT I know how to do it, am comfortable with it, and assuming the weather isn't horrible (which would suck on foot or a bike) I enjoy doing it. Further, there is no major learning curve, just some little bits here and there. And most importantly, security would be much less of a concern; basically I can brink a backpack with me anywhere I go, and can find lockers in bus/train stations to lock it up easy enough.

So what I am going to do is just go walking tomorrow and see how it goes. Maybe I'll find it as miserable as biking was yesterday, or maybe not. I just want to see how it goes.

What do you people think?

Oh, and by the way, while I was walking my bike on a stretch coming back from Fenit (because of the wind), I came across this old cemetery that I thought some of my gothy friends might like. I thought it was cool…

6 October 2008: Yes, I made it to Fenit and back...

Yes, I made it to Finti and back as planned. However, it took way too long, so I need much more practice. I'll be off again tomorrow. And I'l bring my real camera as the views off the Fenit pier of Tralee Bay were simply stunning this morning. If it is like that again tomorrow I'll share on the blog.

5 October 2008: To Fenit or bust...

Okay, so I've been dicking around with my new bicycle and not doing what I need to be doing, specifically getting in a lot of road time. But realistically, I don't have the time for this shit, so tomorrow I'm cycling to Fenit no matter what. It simply has to be done.

25 September 2008: Irish Republican swag straight from Ireland

As many of you know, I am in Ireland for a few months so of course I found the local IRA/Sinn Fein shop. If you are interested in some Irish Republican swag direct from County Kerry, just let me know. I already put up a few tee-shirts on Ebay at cost (what I paid for them) if interested:

Irish Republican T-shirt: Fenians - Erin Go Bragh 1858-2008