Ireland ~ Hiking Lough Eske/Bluestake; Finding Kinnegar; Dancing Irish (Day 11) 01Aug23

We are on our own today! Kala & I and Karla laid a plan to hike from Lough Eske (pn: lowg ask) Castle back to Donegal along the lough, up & over a hill, and down along the Eagle River to town. The visitor center estimated 12km ~ it was 13mi and 1300ft elevation! But, it was a very cool ramble & route finding tramp along backcountry roads and trails near Donegal. I wandered through some weird extensions of property but they abutted private and a stream; I had to back-track while K2 moved on along the lough coastline. It was fine but I caught up.

 

Were we on the right trail? ~ Who knew for sure (but me) till about mile 2.5. The Bluestakc Trail is what we want and confidence with the ladies rose at the sight of the sign.

Plenty of sheep as we began to ascend and passed our last lowland house. Most sheep here are black face white wool but some look remarkably like Merino sheep. Ascending began about mile 3.2 and was a road grade rise over a ridge ~ but decently long and high into new tree types. Those included nice evergreens and farmed pines. Oddly farmers are provided incentives to grow pines for 20 years and then chop them down for raw material for the Swedes.

We ultimately tracked the Eagle River after the high point ~ a pass over a high ridge line, for many miles. We passed more ruins and even began to pickup more wildflowers.We saw a cool family of horses with a new colt with a nearby stallion, and ruins.

 

It was a long way and we wended our way through nice ranches and then the outskirts of town with our toes and bottoms of our feet beginning to ache a bit. Karla was Jonesin' for a bar so we stopped at the first one we came to ~ which was right in town close to our hotel. That's OK 'cause the Castle Bar was cool and we could stay outside and comfy. We found a good hazy there from Kinnegar, a nearish northern town, called Big Bunny... they even called the style "East Coast" meaning East Coast of the US... their tag line is "follow the hops." It wasn't a DDH but it was the best I've had in Ireland.

After a beer we headed back to the hotel and then to the hotel restaurant Signal and then to a private room for a demonstration of Irish dancing with the cutest kid ever stealing the show.