Round Ireland in Low Gear by Eric Newby

Author:Eric Newby [Eric Newby]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780007508204
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 1998-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

The next day dawned, when it did, long after eight o’clock, wet and cold with a very strong wind and snow on the 2000-foot tops of the Caha Mountains. We left the nice, warm haven of the Bay View Guest House with extreme reluctance, and on the way out of Glengarriff we met an Australian dressed like an imitation Irishman in a long black overcoat and a woolly hat with a bobble on it, waiting by the roadside for a bus to Bantry. He told us that he was living in a cabin on the mountainside on property belonging to a friend, and that he passed the days gathering wood in an enclosure of oaks which once formed part of the demesnes of the Lords of Bantry. Given the kind of weather we were having it sounded a rather joyless occupation. He was going back to Australia in February. How we envied him. Then we set off westwards along the south side of the Beara Peninsula on the road to Adrigole, crossing an arcadian, wooded river on the banks of which flourished an assortment of wonderful trees and shrubs, with a view downstream of the ruins of Cromwell’s Bridge, said to have been built for him in an hour. Here, in the surroundings of Glengarriff, the vegetation was extravagantly rich – giant fuchsia up to twenty-five feet high, escallonia, eucalyptus, tree ferns, oak, holly, yew, mountain ash and Chilean myrtle – while clethra arboreus, pink saxifrage, Irish spurge, pale pink English heather and greater butterwort were some of the flora that clamoured for attention in due season.

The sun chose this moment to make an appearance, illuminating the little tree-clad rock islands in the Bay, and the snow-covered mountains behind. Then it began to rain again. What followed was the very steep ascent via Furkeal Bridge, more or less at sea level, to the Avaul Loughs 400 feet up, in a distance of only a mile and a quarter. To the right of the road was a wilderness of bogs which turned orange when the sun came out, and above them huge expanses of dead grass with waterfalls of shiny stones pouring down from the slopes of the Caha Mountains, the highest of which in view was the Sugar Loaf, which gave the impression of being a perfect pyramid and looked as inaccessible as a peak in Tibet. The air was filled with the sounds of innumerable, invisible brooks, but there was not a bird in sight; those with any sense were down near the Equator. The loughs were near a pass from which there was a stupendous view over Bantry Bay, with Cooleragh Harbour immediately below and, across what was now a shimmering expanse of water in which a solitary fishing boat floated motionless, the Whiddy Island oil terminal, the long, black finger of Sheep’s Head Peninsula pointing into the Atlantic, and, far away to the north-east, what were probably the Sheehy Mountains on the Cork-Kerry border, also covered with snow.

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