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<\/a><\/p>\nAs I was setting off, a group of cyclists stopped for a break and we exchanged greetings. I got myself moving and soon left the village behind without much fuss. For the first time in ages, I had very little ground to cover again. After about a kilometre I passed the junction between the two sections and was on virgin territory again.<\/p>\n
There are quite a few lakes in the area but the main feature of the walk for the day was to be Lough Arrow as the route essentially does a massive loop around \u00a0the lake. The lane I’m walking gets progressive narrower and greener until it turns into a lovely little green road.<\/p>\n There is a really striking purple flower that does really well in this area and looks a bit like a hyacinth. They seem to be quite widely distributed on verges in the general area.<\/p>\n I continue on this green road for a bit – the route around here is quite hilly and there is quite a bit of up and town. However, the going is easy – all of the route is on roads or dry tracks and there is little opportunity to get wet feet. Indeed a good part of the first few kilometres is also marked as a cycle route.<\/p>\n A bit further on the route drops down past an interesting looking outcrop – the landscape is quite rock.<\/p>\n After this the route wends its way between two little lakes – White lough and Black Lock. White lock is first and opens out over a relatively flat shoreline.<\/p>\n Black lough is the opposite with cliffs on one side and all the banks very steep indeed. The surface of Black lough is mirror-like in its stillness.<\/p>\n After passing these I have a sudden climb to contend with which leaves me quite out of breath. This day is going to have a lot of upping and downing before I’m done.<\/p>\n As I head further south the landscape becomes a bit odd – there are a lot of glacial erratic boulders on the ground and some of these are truly massive. In the area where I live there are quite a lot of these as well, but they are generally buried and you’ll only discover them when you try to remove a stone from the lawn and then find out your dealing with a 10 tonne rock.<\/p>\n The route leaves the road for a kilometre or so while it ascends a small hill with a trig point on top. There are clear views from here about 30 or 40 kilometres to the northwest and to the south so I guess is a good spot for a trig point.<\/p>\n From here I descended onto a road for a bit and then back off road for a couple of kilometres before I end up in a hotel carpark. On the way the route passes this rather fabulous dolmen.<\/p>\n This is a really impressive site and is associated with the legend of Diarmuid and Gr\u00e1inne. I had a cup of coffee and a snack here and rested for 5 minutes before pushing on through the forest and towards Cromleach Lodge and on towards Arrow river which the route crosses at the very head of Lough Arrow.<\/p>\n A few hundred metres after this, the route takes a short-cut across some fields and it is a quick couple of kilometres up into Castlebaldwin. There was a large road-house type restaurant here that serves food all day and I was very tempted to stop and have a hot meal. However, it was just a little early to be taking a lunch break so I pushed on towards Carrowkeel.<\/p>\n This route was quite interesting and we took a detour through a donkey sanctuary before heading up into the hills towards the Carrowkeel Megalithic Tomb. I pushed on for an hour or so beyond Castlebaldwin until I was well past the 20 km mark and could stop for lunch confident I had more than half of the day’s walking done.<\/p>\n Suitably refreshed after a lunch of ham sandwiches and crisps I headed up between the two rocky ridges and into a rather fantastic landscape. You can see the ridge on the left from the main road but the one on the right is really striking as the cliff-face on it continues on for about 4 kilometres.<\/p>\n After about 20 minutes, I came to a sign where the route splits from the path to Carrowkeel. I really wanted to take a look but it was marked as a kilometre off the route and I didn’t really want to add two kilometres to my day.<\/p>\n This terrain continued for a couple of kilometres before I descended into a valley and back up the other side of one of these ridges<\/p>\n Amazingly there was even a ruined cottage up here. Talk about living in the middle of nowhere.<\/p>\n At this point I started descending into a valley. This went down a lovely green road and past another couple of ruined cottages. Before long, I joined paved road for a couple of kilometres before heading off up again into the Curlew mountains.<\/p>\n This is the view from down the bottom looking back up towards the ridge.<\/p>\n At this point the rain that had been threatening all day got serious about things and I ended up putting my camera away so I only took a couple more shots with my phone. The route headed off through a forest road which was quite seriously littered with old beds and sofas.<\/p>\n With about 4 km to go, I joined the old N4 road which is now a country road since the Curlew Mountains bypass was built. The route has an off-road path here since this used to be such a major road but the terrain is horrible and I probably would have been better off sticking to the road.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n