JandalsnAll

There is something nice about walking from place to place, relying on nothing but step after step to get you where you want to go. I dont mean from the kitchen to the bathroom, but from town to town, or inland to coast. And there’s a pleasant sense of acheivement on finally arriving at your destination knowing you did it all by yourself with your own two feet (not that I have much choice), unlike these lazy arses in their fancy cars. Those are the things I think about when I set off walking and when Im almost there. It’s somewhere in between that lies the torment and suffering. But I forget that and hence find myself again and again setting off on these at first and last refreshingly novel yet ultimately arduous stumbles through Ireland.

A few weeks ago I set off on one such delusional walk to climb around the coast and up to the cliffs
. I did visit the cliffs when I was in Doolin last and you may remember my telling of the bikeride from hell wrought with suicidal ratdogs and fifty minutes of agony. The memory of this did not deter me as I would take the track alongside the cliffs, steering well clear of the ratdogs of the road and ambling happily across gentle swaying fields and crossing babbling creeks – how quaint. Of course because it had been raining for two days straight the gentle fields of my mind had in reality taken on a more swamp-like appearance, the innocent creeks shouting and swearing rather than babbling. And so it was an interesting if somewhat challenging and muddy two hour stumble. Specific challenges including one gate (easy stuff), several electric fences (scary), more than one unsteady fording of aforementioned rude creeks and in the animal department – because there are always crazy animals – a herd of obstinate cows right in the middle of the track, watching my every move, waiting for me to take just one step closer before they’d pounce and devour me limb from limb. I walked around them – very far around them. And then there was the demon horse..it had no eye, just a red hole and yet it kept looking at me….

As I neared the summit, the demon horse’s eyeless stare on my back, I found myself on the wrong end of a fence and ended up back on the road. Determined to walk the full track and the most exciting part around the top on the cliffs, I sploshed back across field and over electric fence (somehow without electricuting myself) to find the small path trodden into the grass a few metres from the cliff edge. As I walked along the narrowing path, the cliffedge becoming ever closer I am reminded of the Council sign way down at the beginning of the track: CAUTION VERY DANGEROUS CLIFFS AHEAD The sign I had casually ignored, scoffed at even. I mean what are ‘very dangerous’ cliffs? How can something be more dangerous than ‘dangerous’? I was beginning to see that yes, these were indeed VERY DANGEROUS cliffs. Nearing the tourist area I could see O’Briens castle (and the tourists) and I urged myself onwards. Problem was this part of the track was barely narrow enough for one of my feet let alone two together, as well as being at an apex with the ‘very dangerous’ cliff edge about a meter away down and to my right, and a barbedwire fence down and out of reach to my left. Add to this the extreme gusts of wind blowing unpredictably one way and then another and you can see I was not in a prime position for the balancing required when skirting ‘very dangerous’ cliff edges. Fatal fall to the right, potential maiming fall to the left, I had no lifepreserving choice except to move cautiously forward. And so everytime I felt a gust of wind coming I’d crouch down and hang onto the long grasses either side of the path. I must have provided an entertaining sight to the tourists milling around at the end of the path – so near and yet so far.
But I did make it, climbing the final fence and wading through the crowds to find myself a quiet spot to sit for a while, after which I took the road home…

Incidentally, the cliffs were just as impressive the second time, maybe more so after it had be revealed to me that these cliffs were the very Cliffs of Despair in The Princess Bride movie – movie choice of many an adolescent slumberparty and every girls favourite. Right? That big rat thing was scary man.

Anyway back to my walking. The next expedition I took up was a walk from Doolin to Lisdoonvarna – home of the infamous September match-making festival – but thats not why I was going there…well kindof but just to see what kind of town holds a matchmaking festival, definitely not with the intention of finding myself a match. And also because it sounded like an interesting place to walk to when one has nothing to do and fancies a walk. Remind me to stop fancying walking. Actually the walk there was rather nice. The day was overcast so it wasnt too hot. I spent the first half an hour or so admiring the countryside and the view over into Doolin with the ocean behind. Other delights included a tractor making haybales (do we have haybales in NZ? the big round ones?) which for some reason I do find delightful, a gray pony with a pink nose and a man smoking a pipe while atop a stepladder painting the side of his house. Yes, this is the world Im living in, where ponies have pink noses and farmers can smoke a pipe while simultaneously holding onto a ladder and a paintbrush. In my mind he even has a plaid shirt and braces, but I may be letting my imagination get away with me. After the excitment of the pipe sighting, things got a little mundane. Same old honey coloured fields and stupid cows eyeing up my limbs. The torment was setting in and I began cursing my Godgiven feet – why cant you go any faster? Why god, why did you make feet so slow? Why didnt you make a rocket booster where my arse is?
Just as I begin contemplating hijacking some other form of transport (tractor? cow?) I see the highway sign announcing I am 1 km from Lisdoonvarna town centre. Lucky for me- and the cow for that matter.

The town of Lisdoonvarna is not as intriguing as its name makes it sound. It has a chinese takeaway, a chemist, a couple of dairys, a few pubs – one being The Matchmaker Bar ‘come on in and meet your match’ – um steering clear of that one. So I milled around trying to find the exciting underground of Lisdoonvarna with no sucess. I did see some young girls in a car with the stereo going in view of a group of schoolboys across the road. Right before my very eyes, an authentic example of Lisdoonvarna matchmaking in its initial stages. So I can say that even out of festival season the matchmaking scene in Lisdoonvarna is alive and well if anyone is looking…..
I bought some decent food at a shop at least twice the size of the Doolin Deli and caught the bus home, sparing EU1.35 to spare myself the not yet forgotten agony of walking.

All in all it was a sucessful morning expedition. I found some vegetables and learnt several new things: 1. Together, Lisdoonvarna and Doolin are the host town to Ukraine – who would have guessed? 2. If I need a match The Matchmaker Bar in Lisdoonvarna is the place to find one – or not – depending on whether I have need of a farmer who can paint a house and smoke a pipe at the same time. 3. Yes these feet WERE made for walking but Id much rather have a rocket booster arse.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 15th, 2005 at 2:27 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.