After I had eaten, I managed to refill my water bottle from the tap kindly provided by the people in the lock keeper’s cottage and pressed onwards. For some reason I came to the conclusion that I had only 10 km to go but on reviewing it later, I would think it was closer to 12 or 13. It was getting to be a bit of a slog as it really was getting quite hot and there was very little shade available.

Before long I can to Island bridge near Kenagh and followed the trail onwards. However, a few hundred metres up the line I came to an open gate with a building site notice posted on it across the way. I checked the map and decided that I had best back-track up to the bridge and go up the opposite bank. I thought that was a bit of a bad show on a waymarked route to just have it blocked by Waterways Ireland and have no detour posted but as it was a bank holiday weekend no harm was done and I guess it would have been different with workers around.

Anyway, I headed off down the other bank and soon came across some parked machinery so it was obviously a site as well even though there was no notice posted. I got past it all and eventually came to a fence at the other end that blocked the way and announced the bank closed. It was just as well I was going the direction I was as otherwise I would have had to figure out a detour on local roads but I can’t help wonder at the strange decision to close both banks with no notices posted.

By now I was starting to get really tired and was becoming quite a struggle The next feature of note was the abandoned Longford branch which meant I had about another 2 km to go to Killashee and another 9 or so overall.

After struggling for another 20 minutes or so I made it to Killashee and had a bit of a rest. I checked the map and figured I had another 7 km to go so another hour and a half should suffice. The rest of the walk was a bit of a blur – really open countryside with very little shade. There were a few interesting features as I approached the end of the line. This lifting road bridge was about 3 km from Clondra – again part of the legacy of Longford Council filling in the canal to make the roads a bit faster.

From here on was a bit of bogland and the first I saw of this was this interesting lifting narrow-gauge bog railway bridge. These narrow-gauge railways are by far the largest rail freight operation in Ireland and the total network is roughly the same length as the main Irish Rail network in the country.

The bog around here is mostly played out and there is much planning under way right now as to what to do next with these vast open spaces, many of which need to be continuously pumped to stop them from flooding. There is much opposition to plans to install large amounts of wind turbines for electricity generation but whatever happens will be preferable to the decades of abuse the land has received at the hands of commercial peat extraction.

This little railway left me with about 2 km to go and I was very relieved indeed when Clondra finally came into sight. The harbour was buzzing with people sitting on their boats and I would guess the pubs were regretting the loss of a fine day’s trading due to it being Good Friday.

The end of the line – Lock 46. This is the end of the Royal canal where it joins the river Camlin and proceeds by way of the Clondra canal to the Shannon. Note the local spelling of Clondra – for some reason the OS spell it Cloondara but as I’m from Longford, I’ll spell it properly. The village is named from the Irish, ‘Cluain Dá Rath’ which means ‘Meadow of the two ringforts’.

So, somewhat refreshed I set out westwards again although I was nearing the point where the canal turns north towards Clondra. The first feature I had to go under was an ugly modern bridge that takes the R392 over the canal. It is only over the last few years that the canal from this point onwards has been navigable. In a fit of madness in the 1970s, Longford county council decided to remove and/or replace 5 or 6 canal bridges and just run roads through the canal. This was the main stumbling block against getting the canal re-opened and was only properly resolved about five years ago.

So this must have marked the old westward limit of the canal because I have childhood memories of having been in the line of the canal with my dad who was a keen botanist and there were lots of interesting things to be found in the marshy ground where the canal once was. The next bridge I came across, Archie’s bridge is burned into my memory for some reason as a place we used to come to walk as children. It is an absolutely standard piece of canal architecture yet like so much else about the canal it is a perfectly functional structure that does what it needs to do and nothing else.

As the day was progressing the cowslips were finally beginning to open out. This specimen was particular awake on the bank at Archie’s bridge

After Archie’s bridge and the lock at Mullawornia, the country started to turn a bit more interesting.

While not quite as twisty as the section near Abbeyshrule, the line started meandering a bit to avoid the need for locks. The canal seemed to be cut into the side of hills quite a bit and I was treated to this vista of Drum lough

At this point, the weather really was getting quite hot. I was beginning to get concerned about my supply of water as I had brought a total of 3 litres with me for the day and I had no idea as to where water was available. It is apparently possible to get water at each harbour but I’ve only ever managed to find the tap at Coolnahay near Mullingar.

After passing the R392 again through a rather elaborate built section of wall and modern bridge, I took another quick rest for a coffee and a few nuts

I changed out my map as I had now walked off sheet 41 and did some estimates of what was remaining. Unfortunately I did manage to mess up somewhat and severely underestimated the distance remaining after Kenagh.

I pushed on for a bit and came to one of these strange bridges which doesn’t seem to have a purpose. I went up on it to take a look and saw this farmer walking around a field staring at his feet. As I was whistling, he must have heard me and came down to have a chat. He had obviously also been on his own for the morning and felt the need to explain that he was trying to find out where his fertilizer had run out. We passed the time of day for about 20 minutes and he offered me some well water if I wanted to walk up a few hundred yards. However, heedful of the aforementioned slurry spreading, I politely declined. He did explain that the bridge had been built for farming and that the canal company had offered the local community (or more likely the gentry) £100 not to build the bridge but they had refused.

Anyway, I pushed on for another few kilometers to Lock 41 which I decided was a nice spot for lunch so I took a break there to have a tuna sandwich and some coffee.

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.