Day 26: Streedagh Point to Lissadel and back again (15.7 Miles)

Hi again. I'm back.

I had a fantastic relaxing weekend with my family and I did a lot of rethinking of how I'm going to address the problems I've been having. The first thing was to actually think about what I actually envisioned when I took on this challenge. I was a bit naive about what the Wild Atlantic Way itself would be like. I thought it would be the quiet little roads that run along the coast magically sewn together to make this awesome route. It turns out it's a lot of very fast-paced roads full of busy traffic that connect the best coastal sights together. By religiously sticking to the route I've been missing out on all the best bits - the bits I wanted to see and to write about. The WAW is a driving route, not a walking route and if my challenge to myself was just to walk that road and that road alone I would do that - but my primary goal was to walk the length of the coast, to reacquaint myself with the country I'd left 27 years ago and to write about it. And to raise money for the RNLI while I'm at it.

So this is what I've decided: I'm going to drive along the WAW in Minty to get to the place I want to walk and set out from there to explore - to WANDER - around that area.The wandering is key to the success of this walk. I need to be able to head off the beaten track and then find my way back.

One of the psychological difficulties I'd had was the fact that I walked away from Minty, completed the walk 15 miles away and then had to find my way back. I think I need to either hitch a lift to what should have been my end point and walk back to Minty or do what I did today which was walk a circular route which will lead me back to Minty either way. I've decided that it's not very important whether or not I sew all the ends together as long as I get to see and experience what I want to see and experience. I will still endeavour to walk about 15 miles a day and try to walk as much of the continuous coastline - I'm just not going to get too hung up if I don't manage it.

If you type in Cliffony as a start point and Sligo as an end point into Google maps you will see what the next 15 miles of the Way should have looked like - the N15 is all you'd get. The entire 15 miles was on a road of heavy traffic driving at speeds in excess of 100km/hr. Where is the fun in that? I decided to drive to Streedagh Point, leave Minty by the dunes and walk along the coastline as far as I could before turning inland and walking to Lissadell House for a quick peek then turning back towards the Point where Minty was waiting for me.

This turned out to be possibly the best decision I've made on this trip. I walked on tiny little boreens with grass growing down the middle; across beaches and along pebble causeways. I was so chilled out and in the moment that you would never have guessed I was the same woman who was having a nervous breakdown last Friday, I met people who invited me in for tea, got barked at a lot and saw lots and lots of lovely flowers.

One of the things I truly love about the Irish summer is how the hedgerows seem to bloom!  So many colours and such a variety of plants growing wild. Here are just a few -

After about 6.5 miles I headed away from the coast and along to Lissadell House - seat of the Gore-Booth family and occasional holiday retreat for W.B. Yeats who wrote about it. By the time I arrived it was 2.30 pm. I bought my ticket and was told that the next tour of the house was at 3. I had a spot of lunch then wandered around the gardens. It's in an incredibly scenic spot, over looking Sligo Bay with Ben Bulben keeping a watch over it. As 3pm approached I started to feel my back 

grumble. If I was to do the tour of the house, I'd be standing for an extra hour and, as it was, I probably wouldn't make it back to Minty for a couple of hours anyway. I decided to save the tour of the house for another day and head back to Minty. I'm glad I did, The heat of the day and the walking on uneven surfaces were wearing me out,

Seeing Minty at the end of my walk was perfect. I was able to climb in and just go straight back to where I'm sleeping (still hanging out with Sharon and Carmel who have been great at helping me rethink this trip and sort out my priorities). Tomorrow I'm going to walk around Rosses Point and hopefully, I'll manage a little detour to Yeats' Grave.

Right now sleep is persistently pushing my lids closed so I'll say goodnight and leave you with more pictures of the day...

Total mileage: 359.1 miles

Raising money for the RNLI on www.justgiving.com/Jane-Volker