Trá Ruiam

Chores this morning and then the weather being good we decided to do the next loop walk whilst we could- Caher Loop. It starts with a vigorous uphill climb and ends with a killer uphill struggle but in between you get a bit of everything: rather sinister wild moorland with a great mixture of delicate grasses; tiny bumpy green roads full of blackberries (we ate royally); a large waterlily-filled lough and a charm of goldfinches; tiny hamlets with ripe smells emerging from barns; a tiny burial ground, the walls a riot of meadowsweet and montbretia; a little stream disappearing under hawthorn and fuchsia hedges; and Trá Ruiam where fishing nets were once dyed in vats full of alder to make them stronger. It was all asparkle but the pier still hasn't been repaired after the storms earlier in the year. We met four hikers from Nothern Ireland, a ram with very fine curly horns, a family off to the headland at Trá Ruiam, two very white goats, a woman blackberrying with her yappy dog, lots of peacock butterflies and some hooded crows.
I've just been for a swim - brrrr, but no sign of any jellyfish.