I got up early and drove to Mullingar as the first train was just a little late to be getting started. I was on the trail by about 7:45 which was about when I wanted to be setting off. The day was shaping up to be a real scorcher but I had my sun-hat, sun-screen, 4 litres of water and the prospect of being able to stock up on water en-route.
Just before I got to Mullingar harbour I come across this interesting railway bridge that I must have crossed closed to 4,000 times over the last 10 years yet have never seen once from the other side. This is going to be a common feeling for the day as I’ll be following the railway line that I commute on and will be seeing lots of things for the first time that I caught as a glimpse from the train hundreds of times before. You can see from this bridge, that the stone structure is capable of carrying a second line but this line was singled nearly a hundred years ago and nobody has saw fit to restore it since.
The first part of the walk is a great loop that the canal takes around Mullingar. As I am on the summit level and the town of Mullingar is in a hollow, a more direct route is impossible and even with the loop the canal is on large embankments for a lot of the time. The scale of the engineering involved here is pretty impressive when you consider it was constructed entirely using manual labour,
Mullingar harbour was looking particularly peaceful. There were a few people about walking dogs and getting a quick run but the town really hadn’t woken up yet. The canal is quite extensive and even has a dry dock.
The other feature of note in the Mullingar loop is that this is the point where the main water supply comes in Lough Owel. This is another feature that I shoot by on the train every day yet never see. This little bridge crosses the supply channel as it joins the canal. Back in the day this channel did most of the work in keeping the summit level but in these days of pumps, there are several other sources of water which is pumped in from the Inny at Ballymahon and from the Brosna. This is mainly because the council now takes a lot of water from Lough Owel and so the lake is no longer capable of supplying enough water to meet all demands. So the main supply no longer supplies a major component of the water for the canal at all.
Another kilometre or so saw me at the other side of Mullingar and once I was done there that was the last I’d see of towns of any size until Enfield. There is a small bridge a this end of the town that is big enough for boats but forces walkers across the road.
At this stage I was beginning to hit my stride and so got moving at a good rate along the line. The path was a mixture of tarmac and compacted gravel and was a good surface if not a little hard of the feet. There were fabulous Irises in flower – well some sort of Iris or Lily, I’m not that bothered about looking them up.
A bit out of Mullingar and we entered into an area that looked to have been cut out of rock. It was quite a deep cutting and the path rose to about 7 or 8 metres about the canal in places.
After this, the country opened out a bit and we rejoined the railway which was to stay our relatively close companion for the whole journey. At about 9 o’clock, I got to The Downs where the main road also joined the canal for a bit of company.
This continued on and off for a few kilometres although it wasn’t much of a disturbance as it was on the other side of the canal and there were plenty of trees keeping the volume down. I stopped for a cup of coffee around 9:30 in a nice quiet spot opposite a farm. I didn’t stop for long and pushed onwards. I came across this rather bizarre-looking contraption of a lifting bridge.
From there it was about 15 more minutes to McNeads bridge and Mary Lynch’s pub but I was so early that they weren’t even open yet. Even so, I probably wouldn’t have bothered as I’ve gotten in the habit of carrying what I need for the day. There were a few boats moored up at the bridge but there didn’t seem to be much signs of life apart from a Waterways Ireland pickup truck.
Although I didn’t stop here, this is natural point for a page-break given that it is a major place of interest. I’d made good progress over the first 2 and a half hours of my walk with about 12km put behind me. There was still a long way to go though.
