Darlingford

“If me and me mate get a ride each time we hitchhike to Dundalk it’d surely be no problem for you lot” said the bloke working at the Adventure Centre – pants covered in mud, Irish face open and cheerful, looked as if he had just dismounted a tractor in the fields above – eyeing Bo with a broad grin. It was Sunday (i.e. yesterday) afternoon, and we had just completed about in excess of 15 km of hiking, only to find out that no buses ran from the village of Carlingford to Dundalk on public holidays. Hence the guy’s suggestion to hitchhike to Dundalk, from which regular buses should operate to Dublin. As I’m writing this story from our living room in Dublin it may be evident that we got there in the end, and much easier than anticipated, as the owner of the Adventure Centre took us along with a van full of Scottish employees on their way to the airport. So that’s the end of the story, how did it begin?

Saturday relatively early morning we embarked on a bus in Dublin, off to enjoy a few hours’ ride through Irish country side, with the sun playing hide and seek behind the white clouds and the prospect of a weekend away from the city with all its St Paddy’s frenzy ahead of us. Carlingford –our destination and voted for as best place to live in Ireland – is located beautifully at the shore of a broad inlet from the sea. With mountains rising up straight from the waterline, remnants of medieval castles scattered throughout the small village and nothing more than sheep and lush green grasslands beyond, Darlingford –as locals tenderly call the village – makes for a spectacular destination to spend the weekend. The ‘Adventure Centre’ where we stayed provided the best budget for value option and apart from shrieking hen party celebrations in the middle of the night proved to be worth the money. Beers and pub food on Saturday evening, red wine and sirloin steak on Sunday, Irish breakfast for a day’s start-up and muffins and scones for lunch made sure that we did not only enjoy the country side by merely hiking.

“When we live in Dublin we’ll be like gone hiking loads in the weekends.” That was the idea. And our first hiking weekend proved to be a promising start of this endeavour, being out there for well over five hours, climbing mountains, making our way through muddy creek crossings, slipping in sheep’s dung, and enjoying spectacular views. Let the photos do the talking. It was *** awesome *** !!