How right he was - scarcely had we passed into the town later that evening, vaguely thinking about finding a spot to camp on the outskirts of the town, than a woman rushed out from her house to see what we were up to. Half an hour later, we were safely encamped on the pristine grass of the local GAA pitch. Mary, our guardian angel, inveigled the main man himself, Dick Byrne, into dropping by to open the clubhouse for us, and the Kennedys, a local family whose daughter suffers from cystic fibrosis, dropped by for a visit and pressed money on us for dinner and a couple of pints.
Tubbercurry, Co. Sligo: an unlikely contender for the best place in Ireland.
All this largesse was particularly welcome after a pretty tough day spent entirely on the N17. We had split into two separate groups on the way out of Knock. Kaner, nursing a sore Achilles, took it slow alongside Smodge and Tim, while the other four powered ahead through beauty spots like Hagfield, the sun ever lurking behind low-slung clouds.
Boredom hit hard, with Barry reduced at one point to "Like, why is it a PAIR of pants?" as a conversation starter.
Arriving in Charlestown, however, spirits rose as we got stuck into a good sit-down meal and dissected the Lions result with the aid of Neil Francis and the Sunday Tribune. A few metres down the road, we crossed into Sligo and stopped for the obligatory photo before ploughing on. The road narrowed thereafter, making it a single-file trudge up to the hospitable folk of Tubbercurry. Not quite sated by the milk of human kindness and the local Chinese, we grabbed a few cans of Bavaria and set the world to rights before settling down.
Distance Day 11: 35km
Theme of the Day: Renewed faith in the decency of mankind
Word of the Day: "Buckeroo"
Theme of the Day: Renewed faith in the decency of mankind
Word of the Day: "Buckeroo"
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