The time had come to set out on my next chunk of canal walk which was from Abbeyshrule to Clondra but I have broken it into a couple of posts to avoid them becoming overly long. I set off from the Whitworth aquaduct at Abbeyshrule with Clondra as my planned destination for a walk somewhere between 35 and 40km – it is difficult to be more accurate because the canal is quite twisty of a good section of the route.

I had a foggy start at about 8 AM and the weather app on my phone was showing -1C as the temperature although I think it was a few degrees higher. I set off at a good pace and was soon through Abbeyshrule without much fuss. This section of the canal is a lot less remote than the section the other side of Abbeyshrule and there were plenty of houses and roads nearby. Indeed, close to 10 km of the route is actually on minor roads.

I saw a couple of cowslips making an appearance although they hadn’t really managed to open out yet thanks to the heave dew due to the fog.

I stopped for a coffee after an hour at Guy’s bridge and had to drink it standing up as there was nowhere to sit. This section of the route is exceptionally flat. There are only 5 locks over the whole walk, one of these is at the very end and two of them are within a kilometer of each other, so the option of having a coffee while sat on a lock gate rarely presented itself.

After that quick break, I kept the pace up and passed the N55 at Toome quite quickly. The countryside here is not spectacularly interesting – it is all good pastoral farmland and for large tracts, given the time of year, the dominating smell was that of slurry as the farmers are spreading in earnest now that the heavy early spring rains are done with. By now the fog had lifted and it was turning into quite a nice day.

At Toome bridge I had to take my chances with a herd of cattle who had set up camp on the path. I saw this kind of thing a few times where farmers had obviously annexed sections of towpath during the long years the canal was completely closed. There were numerous fences to be crossed on this section of walk and in places it got quite irritating.

It was a relief to make it to Ballymahon harbour for around 10 AM which was a good pace to start the day off with. I make the distance around 13 km so that was a good start to the day. To celebrate I had a cup of coffee and a snickers bar.

It was nice to sit there at the harbour and watch the place wake up. There are a few houses around Ballymahon harbour and people were slowing getting themselves started for the day and I’d already done 13km. The day was beginning to warm up so I stowed my winter hat in my bag as I wasn’t really going to need it. It really was looking at turning into a fantastically warm day.

There were a few swans and ducks to keep me company.

So I packed up and set off on the next section which I probably won’t get around to writing up until tomorrow.