Eugene dropped us off past The Ponderosa, the highest bar in Ireland, exactly where we had finished the day before. This way, our walking path from Belfast to Derry/Londonderry would remain unbroken. On the way, he had shown us an ancient megalithic tomb and given us a history lesson as well.
One mile north of Maghera stands a prehistoric tomb at least 4,000 to 6,000 years old. Dolmens are tomb structures with standing stones and a horizontal capstone, found in a number of places in Ireland. In it, our ancestors would have placed the cremated remains of their dead.
Our path would be downhill most of the way for seven miles, ending in Dungiven. Seven miles wouldn’t get us far enough to make it to Derry/Londonderry by Thursday, so we would walk past our lodging to be dropped off there again, as we had this morning. The scarcity of lodging had created this hopscotch way of moving us closer to our destination. There would be scenery and mostly good roads on our way, but that did not negate the 30,000 steps we would take that day.
While you are walking, there is plenty of time to notice things and try to make sense of all you experience. Along the roads, there are too many markers where someone has lost their life. After briefly pausing at yet another to notice the youth of the life lost, I saw a car parked on our side of the road. As I walked by, I noticed a mother suckling her child from the corner of my eye. The two separate observations came together in my mind as the end and the beginning in the circle of life. I smiled at the connection and the balance it helped restore in me.
Continuing down the slope, there was a turnout overlooking the river below with a couple of benches. We decided it would provide a place to put up our feet. Five minutes for water and a fruit and nut bar turned into about twenty minutes before we agreed it was time to move on.
We would alternate who was setting the pace as we finally came to the valley floor. The mountain pass freeway became just another big road leading to a roundabout as we entered the city of Dungiven. The first exit from the roundabout, where we dashed across the roads that fed into it, put us onto Chapel Street. Across the street from the chapel was the bed and breakfast where we would spend the night.
Next door to the Spar convenience store was a tall wall overgrown by a large hedge. Beyond the wall was a residential area, and at the top of the wall was a sign for Edenroe B&B. Walking around the end of the wall, we saw many two-story homes and one that was behind a black iron gate. Double-checking the address of our B&B, we found that it was, in fact, our stop for the night.
Through the gate and to the front door. Knock. Knock. Doorbell. Wait. Wait. Our host, a lovely elderly Irish woman, came to the door and asked if we could wait a minute while she finished her webinar. Sure. About five minutes later, she returned and asked us to come in and sit in the living room, as it was running a little long.
When she finally finished her online meeting, she came in to chat for a bit and was quite enthralled with our adventure to date. We let her know that we wanted to just drop our backpacks in our rooms and walk on a bit further. When we got as far as we felt comfortable walking, we would call Martin from The Ponderosa, whom we had contacted the day before, and he would pick us up and bring us back for the night.
We left the Edenroe B&B and continued down Chapel Street on the bright warm day, but without our backpacks. We hoped this would make it easier to put some miles behind us and close the gap to our next stop by that much more.
It was less than a half mile, and we were looking across the street at yet another castle. The Dungiven Castle is a 19th-century castle that sits right on Chapel Street. We could not have avoided it if we wanted to. It also serves as the location for the bus stop in the city.
Through downtown and out the other side, and into the countryside again. There were fewer trees here, meaning that there was less shade. In the heat of the day, we were both beginning to feel the over two marathons we had in our feet. We stopped for water breaks a couple of times after leaving the city, and still, the energy could not be replaced by the rest or food we put into our bodies. Kit had drifted back from my lead by nearly a hundred yards as I searched out a bit of shade in the open space of fields of grass that lined our path.
I found a spot off the road and in the shade of the only tree around. I found the cool of the shade was refreshing for me, and I could not wait until Kit caught up with me to experience the same rejuvenation. She finally arrived and stepped off the broad sidewalk that had been making our progress less risky, only to stand in the shade and put her hands on her hips. Her smile was weak when she said she needed to sit again for a while. This wasn't the same as before. She was really beat. When about ten minutes had passed, she said she had decided that letting me go ahead would be best. With my energy, I could put in enough miles to make tomorrow a shorter day so that she could make the last two days into Derry/Londonderry.
I asked if she was sure. She said she knew her body and that she needed to rest. I could pick her up on my way back with Martin in an hour or so. In my mind I took this as an assignment to put as many miles as possible into the rest of the day so that we would have an easier day tomorrow. I already knew that the last shot would be less than five miles and we could basically do that on crutches.
I geotagged her location on my phone. I double-checked my contact with Martin for our pickup. I took photos of where she was so that I could recognize it on the way back. Then I put my butt into gear and set my steps to the pace I use on the treadmill, about four miles an hour. I set out on the same road we had been on since arriving in Dungiven. I was on the right side of the road so that I was facing oncoming traffic in Northern Ireland.
The undulating terrain soon began to have trees along the road once again. Wonderful. The sun was getting lower in the southwestern sky. Bad. The shade was on the other side of the road. Traffic was light enough, and the sun was hot enough, for me to switch over to the other side of the road to take advantage of the shade that was teasing me as I tried to put miles behind us while Kit recovered.
My phone battery was running low, and I really needed to be able to hear from Kit and call Martin for our ride when the time came. While I was walking, I clipped a battery backup onto my phone and stuffed them both together into my shirt pocket. I was carrying my water bottle in my right hand and trying to keep up my pace both up and down the hills. Down to my left was the new freeway that had been constructed for traffic into the city where I was planning to arrive in two days. The road I was walking on was the old highway, and my lovely sidewalk turned into a dirt and grass trail for over a mile. Well, that is going to slow me down.
At this point, I received a message from Kit on WhatsApp saying that she was going to stumble back to the B&B, hoping that the rest had revived her. I informed her that I was aiming for a total of 4-5 miles from where we had stopped, and she told me to enjoy my walk. I continued until I reached the bottom of a hill, where the phone app instructed me to climb a hill while the main road continued straight for a couple of miles. Confused by this recommendation, I called Martin to ask which way he thought I should go. He advised me to stay put and that he would come to get me. I had been walking for a little over an hour and had covered about five miles. This meant that Kit and I would have eight miles to walk the next day and 4-1/2 miles the day after. Very doable.
It wasn't a very long wait for Martin. He whipped around onto the side road where I was waiting and picked me up. On the way back, he told me how he had already taken Kit back to the B&B. Then he told me a bit about his family and connections to the area, including a patch of land on the hills we were driving through. It was wonderful to get this close to the human roots of Northern Ireland. I asked if we could take him out to dinner, but he said that he really could not. Instead, he told me to just ring him in the morning fifteen minutes before we needed to go, and he would take us out to where he had just picked me up.
A short walk from the car to the B&B, and I was sitting on the couch with Kit, talking about the work I had put in and checking in on her. She was happy to hear about my progress but said she would not be walking tomorrow. Even though she had said the words, I held out hope that she would recover overnight, as she had on more than one occasion, and make the eight-mile trip to our final overnight stop.
A little research showed that the only places for sustenance were over a half mile away on the downtown stretch we had passed through earlier in the heat of the day. An Indian pizza place looked like just the pick for a full belly without breaking the bank. Walking to the downtown area, I kept an eye on her and was pleasantly surprised to see she was not showing too much damage from our journey today.
When we finally got to the address for the pizza place, we found that it was no longer there. Damn. There was a pub across the street that looked like it might work for the evening. Kit and I crossed the street and went in. There were tables in the back and a bar with stools in the front. We went into the back and asked if there was food available. The barmaid told Kit that although there was no food available there, we could bring food into the beer garden out back and bring whatever we wanted.
Of course, there was another pizza place that was not out of business nearby, and we stopped in to order a large Hawaiian pizza (some say OMG, some say yum). While I waited to receive the hot baked goods, she went back to the pub to get herself a glass of wine and me a pint of Harp. By the time I got there, she was waiting at a large picnic bench with her wine and my beer. In the short time I had been away, a local at the pub had made it clear that he was very interested in her. I went back in to get whatever was needed after that to avoid run-ins with the locals.
With our salt and carbs fully recharged, we made our way back to the B&B. I was not sure if Kit had actually reached her limits or not. I was hoping that in the morning she would be recharged and ready to go again. Then again, maybe she knew something I didn't.
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