Day 28 - 24/07/20 - Mourne way

So that day started with a very welcome fry up and cuppa tea at Eoin and Darcy's house. Who very kindly let me camp in there garden for the night. Thanks again guys 👍.

Eoin joined me for the start of the day and showed me a wee shortcut into kilbroney park to get us started on the trail. Love a bit of local knowledge 😁.

We trekked up through the forest and out into the wilds at the base of the mountains covering roughly 10km. Pics are in Day 28 - part one on Instagram

Eoin left me at that point as work was a calling and I trekked on towards Rocky Mountain.

The plan on this section was to meet up with my Neighbor Peter who was parking at Spelga Dam carpark and walking the Mourne Way towards me where we were to join up.

Thinks seemed to be going well until I wasn't paying attention to my route and veered off towards the carpark. By the time I realised and corrected my error ten minutes had passed.
In the meantime Peter had trekked past me and was heading on up the road I just walked down 🙈 #mybad.
By the time we realised my error and that we'd missed each other it was too late to alter our courses.

Peter headed back to his car after clocking up over 12 miles and I headed on round my route. This took me round a mountain and back towards Spelga Dam were fate stepped in and I met Peter who was in his car at this stage.

We organised for him to drive down into Tullymore forest and park before walking back up to meet me and we got a couple of miles, in with Peter showing me another handy wee shortcut cutting a couple of km of my journey before he headed back to his car and I stayed on course for Newcastle.

Weather wise Eoin and I had a great wee morning with the sun in and out from behind the clouds. This lasted till around 1400 when it became overcast and we had the odd shower.
Peter and I got our waterproofs on at one stage but this was short lived and when we hit the forest section the trousers came off as there was only sporadic light rain.

Getting to the edge of the forest myself I left it and headed down toward Newcastle. Taking a wrong path (again) I inadvertently got caught up walking through coasre and tall ferns. This maybe lasted 700-800m before I came out at at field of curious cows who followed me and then ran away until I bounced back out of their field.

This done all was left to do was head down into Donard park for a pint and some food where I met up again with Peter who had a (non acholic) pint with me for roughly 45 min before having to head back home to Antrim.

I am still currently sat in the bar and will head back out at last light to pitch up and get the head down for the night.

Todays totals are: 34km walked and a total ascent of 1159m.