On this splendid, clear day, we went for a walk. We took a taxi over to the gem-like medieval village of Inistioge (pronounced in-est-eeg) and walked 8 miles of the South Leinster Way to Gregenesmanah (pronounced greg-en-es-man-uh). After hearing our cavalier attitude to transportation (“we’re pretty sure we can get back somehow"), the taxi driver gave us his phone number and told us to call him when we were ready to be picked up. Nice man.
The hike reminded me a little of the Pacifc Northwest with all the all world charm of hedgerows and stone walls and sheep and vistas of patchwork fields. We hiked through farmland, up a wooded hillside, along a ridge, and back into the vally. There were oodles of foxgloves and lots of other flowers I don't know.
Kind of showing off my new camara here. At full size, the previous image captured spiders and dew drops on the flowers that I didn't even notice at the time.
Calves aleaping.
We climbed over a fence and ate lunch in a lovely field that seemed to have no livestock. We joked that it contained a single bull named Killer. If so, he must have been asleep in the flowers and couldn't be bothered to come maul us.
This was our trail maker man. We only lost him once.
A mysterious and absurd guard rail in the middle of the woods and an old metal sign pointed the way to Freney's Well. There was an ancient stone wall up there and some other stuff. We didn't go check it out, because...well, this was near the end of our hike, and what with walking in town and getting lost once, I'm guessing we walked around 10 miles that day. We are neither of us terribly in shape, and we descovered why the guild book suggested walking the trail in the opposite direction: it's mostly uphill the way we walked it. So, we were tired and did not want to climb the mountain and look for this mysterious well. I've been unable to find anything about it online and am now plagued with curiosity.
Shadows of the clouds.
I was so sore the next day, I could hardly stand. However, this was my favorite day of the trip.