Kerry Way May 18, 2025 Day 4 - Foilmore to Waterville

Hillwalk Tours Overview While you are not climbing to any great height on today’s walk it is nonetheless one of the more demanding walks of the Kerry Way. The trail follows scenic and undulating mountain ridges that offer stunning views of the mountains that surround the route in all directions. An optional road alternative lets you skip the last ridge which can be the most challenging part of the day. No matter which route you choose, your hike finishes in Waterville, one of Ireland’s most westerly towns, which enjoys spectacular sunsets.

Daily Information 

Distance:   22.8 Kms   [95 Kms]

Walking time:   5h 35m [21h 23m]

Avg walking speed:   4.1 Kms/hr  [4.4 Kms/hr]

Elevation G/L meters: 762:(766)  [2,265:(2,308)]

Total Daily Steps: 30,161 [126,369]

A very interesting day as John described it…but really absolutely nothing blogpost worthy happened…nothing 🤣. We just walked…on to tomorrow’s blogpost!

But first a few thoughts 😉

Breakfast as usual was great requiring a few pictures.

My apologies as I realized AFTER eating all my granola that I did not take a picture so this is the best I could do

White and Black pudding (blood sausage) is delicious 😋 

Now I got a little confused when ordering…it happens to the best of us…I heard “do you want an Irish Breakfast”? I said yes with scrambled eggs however I missed that this Irish Breakfast comes with fried eggs only.

Fried eggs have a runny yoke… for some unknown reason this doesn’t really appeal. In the end no big deal…will be more careful next time.

Shuttle ride back to Gaelic Football pitch where we stopped walking yesterday. Absolutely hilarious and fast becoming the best part of my day. 

We hop in…John in front..me in the back. Driver tall boisterous fellow turns to me and I THINK says “you understand Irish talk?” “Well not really but I try”

John plays it up to get non stop unintelligible conversation going…what I did not know is the Driver is also in on the fun. He simply turns it on…the shuttle ride is part of an act so to speak.

I catch a few words from our driver that are recognizable in ANY language… let’s say some very colourful words! They are said in a manner that simply rolls off the tongue almost as if singing!

Gaelic football, local ordinances, local politicians, local murders (John’s specialty) etc are all topics that get the conversation hopping! Excellent to simply observe!

 Sunshine…what else in Ireland? 🇮🇪…and a challenging 😰 start to the walk with most of our elevation gain in the first 7.6 kms.

Note where blue dot is in the elevation profile and climbing involved 

We were both working very hard in the first 7.6 kms. It seemed we were non stop climbing on a rather rough trail. The average walking speed of 3.6 kms for that distance is somewhere between a snail 🐌 and a turtle 🐢. I can’t ever remember such a slow pace however it is entirely indicative of the terrain and the effort involved.

The terrain was varied with really nice views once on hillside ridges. 

We met a walker from Israel 🇮🇱…a country first for me. He had suffered food poisoning yesterday and had missed the entire day. The two American women whom I mentioned in a prior blogpost had suffered the same fate and were not walking today. Just bad luck!!! Unfortunate!

At John’s suggestion I will plan on introducing an Irish word of the day. Today’s word is Yerra.

Definition: Yerra is an Irish expression of dismissal, disbelief, depreciation or a magical combination of all three.

Sample Usage: In our B&B bathroom yesterday we had a plumbers nightmare. I did ask John if the setup was an Irish standard…after all driving is…well you know 🤪

For the shower the dual lever to control on, hot, cold was installed upside down. Why? Because the plumbing had placed hot water pipes where cold should be and vice versa. You can imagine my confusion in trying to figure this out however I calmly twisted and turned in every direction and voila!

For the sink there were two taps which is an old style however the left hand tap controlled the cold water and right hand tap warm water. That one was easy for me to figure out..after all I do have a University degree from the dark ages.😂

Plumber tells the client “work in your bathroom is done” she/he inspects the work and says “this won’t do everything is backwards” The plumber simply says Yerra…or so what…no big deal…you are being too fussy!

Arriving in Waterville after the tough walk two things were desperately needed…

Pretty impressive selfie I know

Basically that’s it for the day…injury report all good for both of us…feeling strong…on to tomorrow where we have a short day of 17 or so kms. 

We can take the coastal route which is supposed to be superb or a more isolated inland route which is much longer and retraces 7 kms or so of today’s route! Hmmm 🤔 Weather continues to hold up as per brilliant forecast! 😊

Some photos of the day…

A poisonous plant as per Horticulture guru John

Guinness Beef pie 😋

Night reflectors in road…great help in fog