To The Highest Bar in Ireland

When I woke in the morning, I looked across Church Street and saw a church. This was no surprise, but there would be a few before the day was through.

Breakfast was not a surprise. This Bed and Breakfast had a reputation for excellence, and it lived up to those expectations. The juice was fresh squeezed. Gerardine had made the scones herself. The hot breakfast was everything we needed to walk the main highway to the highest bar in Ireland.

When we got to the A6 highway towards Derry/Londonderry, we knew it would not be a quiet day. The trucks and cars were making enough noise for the audiologist to get out his sound level meter. Peaking to 90-decibels with a 74-decibel average. That, and the wind gusts with every passing truck, kept the tension level high enough to stay alert. Fortunately this road had a shoulder wide enough to stay completely out of traffic.

After about a mile or so we saw a car pulled off on a side road ahead. As we approached, he got out and waved. He introduced himself, and said he had read about us. He suggested we take a tour away from the main road to enjoy it more. A quick glance at the map on the phone showed a few things. Yes, it would be less hectic and more scenic. And it would add over an hour to our walk that day. We said we would be forced to listen to the music of the trucks today in the interest of reaching our destination. At this point Clifford ( I did say he introduced himself) asked if we would like to come and join him and his ailing wife for a cup of coffee. With prayers for his wife, and the press of passing time, we sadly were forced to decline his Irish hospitality.

As we walked along that main road to our left was the constant passing of traffic, while on the right we had the scenery and life that we had come to love throughout our walk.

I chose to spend most of my time looking to the right. A bit of a metaphor for how I choose to view life. With a wee bit of time on my hands, and a wide shoulder to walk on, I started to write on my phone. Not my blog. This was a personal gift to our hosts who not only housed and fed us, but were picking us up at the end of the day and dropping us off the next. This little drive and drop was to legitimately have our walk unbroken. Over a couple of miles I thought about what we were doing and why. I put into these words.

We walk

We know where we are going

But that is not why we are going

We walk because we are free to do so

We walk to slowdown

To see, hear, and smell the world we are passing through

We walk because we still can and some day our walking days will come to an end

The road beckons

And the path

And the trail

Speed numbs the senses

We slow down to be where we are

Not just to get somewhere

Slow

Be

Live

We continued forward. A step at a time until the long climb up to the pass rose in front of us. The skies were clear and the day was warm. The fleece and windbreaker were long tucked away in my backpack. I was consciously trying to drink more water and stopped to do just that. Kit came up from behind after about a minute and stopped too and leaned hard against a street sign pole. Her back was hurting, but she absolutely refused to let me take her pack. She made some adjustments to her gear, and she said she was doing better. Her face didn’t reveal that she was covering up the pain.

Two and a half miles until Glenshane Pass. Fortunately we had the wide shoulder to walk on. As we approached the top I realized I had only been looking forward. I stopped for another drink and turned around. It made me think how far we had come. Each ridge and valley I could see had a person, or a dog, or a place that was now a part of me forever. I could see as far as the lake we had first seen cresting out of Belfast, but not beyond that last ridge of hills. We had come so far. I put away my water bottle, turned, and we went further.

The slope lessened as we approached the pass. Rounding a gradual curve, I saw something that made my heart sink, and I swore out loud. Our eight foot wide shoulder had narrowed to the width of a paint stripe.

With just over a mile to the “Highest Bar in Ireland” we had to start the dance of car and truck dodging again. It slowed us down. It pissed me off. But our objective was literally in sight.

We had planned to have Gerardine pick us up here, but for now we would just take a break.

We went inside and chose between the door to the bar and the door to the restaurant. Both went into the same room, we found, after selecting the dining room. An iced coffee for Kit, and a hot chamomile tea for me, in hopes of getting a good night’s sleep.

Before we could order an Irishman in a grey sweatshirt walked up and said, more than asked,”You’re the ship people!” Martin was his name, and he said after retirement as a firefighter he came to The Ponderosa for a temporary job eleven years ago. He still worked here, but this was his day off. After declining to join us a couple times he got our order in to the waitress and sat down.

We exchanged the stories we had with countless others along the way including the part about having trouble finding lodging at the end of each day’s walk. After going over options on our phones he came up with a plan.

He would arrange lodging about eight miles ahead and pick us up after walking past it as far as we could. That would put us in range of lodging the next night as well.

He got on the phone and checked a couple places he knew that matched our potential options from searching. We exchanged phone numbers so we could communicate later.

He told us more than I can remember about Derry/Londonderry and about The Ponderosa. I do recall that he said the first copy of the Declaration of Independence overnighted at the restaurant while being transported for reprinting and distribution in Ireland.

With our logistics worked out and Google maps live view showing the shoulder returning about a half mile down the other side of the pass, we opted to put in a bit more time. I selected a small side road about two miles further and gave our innkeeper a call with the location for pickup.

She met us there right on time to return to where we had started the day. It felt a bit odd, but we honestly earned those miles. She wanted to introduce us to a couple German journalists who she was sure would want to hear our story. Well, that would be fun and interesting.

When we arrived about a half hour later ( our walk took over six hours) their German guests had not arrived.

We said we could meet at Mary’s Pub and talk over dinner and a beer. Dinner and a beer happened , but the German journalists did not.

Chicken and bacon Caesar salad, and loaded double fried chips, plus an Irish beer.

When we returned from dinner it was getting late and the journalists had just arrived. Everyone was tired, and we could talk in the morning. If they were up to it.

Eugene had gotten the poem that I sent to him, and he had shared it with his son. They both loved it, but his son said I must have been a hippy when I was young. What I heard was that they loved it.