Walking across Europe - 2013: Kerry Way May 20, 2025 Day 6

Hillwalk Tours Overview:

The hike today follows old mountain tracks and paths across the foothills of a long range of mountains, often with far-reaching coast and mountain views. This is the same route used to transfer butter to Cork in the 1800s. Staigue ringfort, one of Ireland’s finest historical sites dates back around 1,600 years and is located just off the trail.

Daily Information

Distance: 24.6 Kms [137.7 Kms]

Walking time: 4h 58m [30h 11m]

Avg walking speed: 4.9 Kms/hr [4.5 Kms/hr]

Elevation G/L meters: 552:(552) [3.108:(3,161)]

Total Daily Steps: 33,107 [183,826]

Another great day of walking on the Kerry Way 😊. A few little drops of rain here and there and nice cloud cover…very pleasant!

This morning John had a super suggestion to run by me…”let’s walk past Sneem which is only 17kms away to shorten tomorrow which is 32km. So we mapped it out and walked an easy 7kms extra and returned to Sneem (Alain Lodges) by a…well…”taxi”😂

As John suggested “this thing was pulled out of the scrapyard for this ride”… Pretty close!!!

- John did not have a seat belt…I had one…so I told John “I will do my best”…in case of…

- The mini bus was an 18 seater…most of which had holes in them

- The side panel door (picture below) did not close from the inside so driver had to get out to shove it closed. The door panel was loose. Note the light showing as door never closed properly. Oh and I don’t think it opens from the inside.

The ride back was extremely sketchy in that everything rattled badly so I told John that I would take a selfie ie “the last known picture of Guy”. Sorry Carmel I should have offered to take a last known picture of John 😳 Lise, Jeanne and Claire I am NOT listening if you say “Pa you look terrible!”

The day started with something that had been billed as the Walk of the Planets.🪐 Good concept…super location but a little underwhelming 🤔. I took pictures of the 9 planets however while the write up is different they are all same so please don’t rush here just to see this!

Breakfast was again a treat in a real nice setting. Debra was so pleasant this morning in taking our order and ensuring we had everything we needed. I think this will be my last full “Irish Breakfast”. Those first few kms walking are a little tough 😂 sloshing around…

Fine china

Delicious scone

I made a sandwich from a piece of bacon…John’s trick

Ok that’s enough for breakfast pictures 🤪🙄😂

Today we introduced ourselves to Bruno a young German walker who we had come upon a few times. Similar to Camino walks the three of us started walking together for an hour or so coming into Sneem.

Bruno will be studying Architecture…walks with a 13kg bag 😳 and camps most nights. His overnight ferry ride from France to Dublin was over 20 hours! He did not book a berth so tried to sleep on the deck…sounded a little rough.

Exchanged a lot of information about Germany, Canada and Ireland…much fun! I am multi lingual in French, English, Spanish and German with respect to counting from 1 - 10. At some point I could do the same in Japanese but alas… Bruno had a good chuckle with my German counting especially 9…seems like my pronounciation is a little “off”.

Hope our paths cross again on the Kerry Way!

John and Bruno

John and I have been actively involved in analyzing a local murder case of a local farmer…very sad. He was murdered near Kenmare which is tomorrow’s destination.

Everyone is engrossed in the case. A suspect was held for 24 hours and released without a charge I have been reluctant to mention an increasing concern that John will pull a runner 🏃 as we near Kenmare as the lure of the case will be too much for John. He desperately needs to crack the case! I think he dreams about it…but not sure!

I would then be left alone to try and communicate and understand the local Irish folks 😳 Real real trouble then!

The Irish word for the day is Banjaxed

Definition: If something is banjaxed, it's ruined, broken, confounded, or shattered is an Irish informal word for the art or practice of bluffing or deception

Sample Usage: When John and I arrived at the end of day 1 walking which was by far the roughest day we were Banjaxed!

A correction to my Day 4 blogpost where I mentioned that the first part of the day at 3.7kms per hour was as low as I can remember.

Clearly my memory is pretty lousy as Greg my walking friend on the 2023 UK Coast to Coast pointed out. Days 2 , 3, 4 through the Lake District were 2.9, 3.3 and 3.6 kms per hour respectively 😢 Selective memory concerning my 3 toughest walking days ever!!!

Tomorrow is Day 7 our second last day to Kenmare or 25 kms. First we need a shuttle ride back to our end point today…wonder what vehicle will show up tomorrow? 🤣

Finally some pictures of the day…a day with varied terrain which always makes for a nice walk in the countryside 😊