Day 33: Belderrig to Pullathomas (12.8 miles)

Guess what? I woke up at 05:50 this morning. Dammit! I tried to doze but by 7:30 I got up. I guess my body wanted me not to miss the bus to Belderrig that left right outside the hostel at 10:35am. Clearly I need a lot of time to get dressed, eat a bowl of muesli and leave. That said I was just about to leave when nature called (by digestive system's regularity is based on whatever is the most inconvenient) so I actually could have missed the bus had it not been fifteen minutes late.

My driver, Thomas, was a lovely fella who apologised for being late but he'd been working on a digger about 20 minutes before and had to finish that job before starting the bus route.

God I love this country!

He told me that he'd lived in Donegal for many, many years and we talked about my walk and all the places I'd visited. He told me that he used to drive to the most westerly part of Donegal (which was actually further north than Sliabh Liag) and he would look over at Mayo. He could see the Ceide Fields and sometimes his brother would go to the Ceide Fields in his car and flash his headlights at him and he could see them.  I thought this story was just wonderful.  The draw of home is so strong and these tiny moments of connection, so important.

I was travelling to Glenamoy on this bus which was going on  to Castlebar and I had to swap over to the Ballina bus to get to Belderrig. Thomas's father, Mick, was the driver of the bus waiting for us in Glenamoy. He let me sit up front with him as we traveled the rest of the way to Belderrig. He was as friendly and charming as his son. He knew everyone on the bus by name. As we approached Belderrig he told me that this once thriving little village was dying slowly. "All the young people have moved to Dublin since the crash. The pub, the school and the post office have all closed. There's only the church left and that won't be for long." There was a deep sadness in his voice. Hopefully the same call that his own son had will bring them back one day.

When I set off from Belderrig the young man who had asked his friend to take me back to Ballycastle yesterday was working on the roadworks building a wall. We nodded an hello and I set off down the road back to my hostel.

The road was fairly boring but it was a good one to walk on. The tarmac was even and had that slightly bumpy texture and there was very little traffic on it. Most of the surrounding fields were bog and had sheep in them. In the distance there were dark hills. The road stretched very straight in front of me. As I progressed the sun decided to come out and all in all it was a very pleasant day.


The flowers were, of course, glorious. Along the route there were long stretches of rhododendrons and in amongst the grass verges there were these little gems.

My feet were starting to complain by the nine mile point.  In large part this was because I was wearing my size 5.5 shoes. I'm a size 5 and I bought those particular shoes a half size bigger to allow for swelling as I walked. However it didn't allow enough room so I had to buy a size 6. These were the ones I was wearing yesterday when I got soaked and despite being in the airing cupboard (hot press) all night they were still drenched this morning, so I was forced to wear the smaller shoes and my feet complained bitterly about it.

As I came within a mile of the hostel and my end point for this walk, I saw a large animal in the distance that appeared to be on the road. My thought process went like this:

"What is it? A cow? No I think it's a horse maybe? No definitely a cow. Yeah it's a cow. Hang on that's one very large cow! It's not a BULL is it? On the feckin' road? Shit!"

As I got a bit closer I tried to see what kind of dangly bits there were at the animal's nethers.  S/he was very large and powerful-looking and it was standing with its nearside back leg obscuring anything that might enlighten me as to whether it was a docile cow or an angry bull. The cows in the field were all congregated in the corner moo-ing loudly and sounded quite worried and I could see from the way this animal was moving that it wanted to return to them. I was coming to the conclusion that it was indeed a cow when a slight change of angle revealed ... udders! I felt very sorry for this poor cow who seemed to think that I was going to lead it back to safety. I looked around for the nearest house and decided that I would call in and see if we could find the farmer who could help her back to her herd.

The first two houses were empty so I went down a steep drive to a very new looking house that had a tractor parked near a large outbuilding. I rang the doorbell and a young woman with a small baby answered. I told her about the cow on the road and asked if she knew who owned it. I could tell by her face and the way that she thanked me profusely that it was indeed hers. She offered me a drink but as I was so close to base I elected to keep going. As I left I saw a farmer make a dash for a car and zoom up the drive to go rescue the cow.

I was very pleased with my good deed for the day.

The estuary appeared as I neared the village and the noise of children playing in gardens filled my ears. School was out. Time to go home and have a rest.

 not my cow!

Total mileage; 438.8 miles

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