We made it to the coast. We have walked 300km so far. There are around 150km to go as we snake back up to Westport. It has been so tough that I can’t find the words for it yet; grinding out the miles on foot, across tracks, trails, mostly friendly roads and some less friendly roads, has had a sort of stun gun effect. And it’s not over!
The weather has been so ridiculous that nobody can stop talking about it. I’m almost out of SPF50. My hands look like they’ve seen hard work and no writer can get away with saying that.
One story: in a tiny, half-populated village in Clare, a dog came running out of its house and bounded towards us. There have been a lot of free-roaming country dogs in the last few days, who seem to take themselves off for walks happily. This one decided to join us for a bit. We tried to take him home. He kept reappearing. We’d turn back, and he’d go, and then he’d be there again at our side. A few kilometres down the road we met…
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