Machrie+Lagg, July 2+3

Today's walk is photo-less due to my having neglected to put the card back into the camera, not a bad day to have been so careless as I hardly took any pictures.  The walk consisted of two distinct parts: there was the deadly dull road walking punctuated by two take-care-now-finding-your-way-through-the rocks sections, which were kind of fun, only I did find myself saying "oy" a lot.

Tonight's B&B involved a transfer to Blackwaterfoot where I was all excited to be because it has an excellent little bread bakery.  But the bakery was not open to-day, so that was sad-making.  The local grocery is tiny and must cater to the golf-playing cocktail crowd because it sells things like venison pate and several varieties of herring, but little in the way of staples.

Oh, but I have accomplished two things about which I am so bloody proud!  I figured out how to make tracks from routes and how to split routes.  I always hated routes as a navigational method because I realise now that I did now know how to use them.  Well, now I do.....which does make turning them into tracks less vital, so if anyone wants to know, just ask.  Tomorrow all this new knowledge gets put to the test for the first time!

This is tomorrow and still struggling with new knowledge, but making progress with the route format.

After more deadly dull walking along a shoulderless main road where cars and trucks speed like crazy, it was really nice to have respite in this pine woods especially since I had already made a mistake that cost me about an hour.

An upended tree can be quite beautiful and it can also serve as a structure behind which one can pee:

Eventually there was beech walking and there were caves.  This particular one has been honoured by the placement of many mini cairns.

These caves have not:

Honestly, these stones are really jet-black, as black as charcoal, which they resemble, but you would never know from this photo:

Today's walk was the weirdest ever.  Too much road walking punctuated by some excellent walking along the water, but lots of bushwhacking through jungle-like thorny, underburshy and overbrushy stuff that I wasn't sure whether I would, any minute, be assuming Dr. Livingstone or empathising with Teddy Roosevelt in the Amazon.  And there were large gates, which, being locked, had to be climbed, and other impediments.  It was a long day and as a topper, my bags were delivered to the wrong hotel.  Took a bit of doing to get that sorted!  On the plus side, the famed bakery in Blackwaterfoot that was closed yesterday was open today, so I schlepped a loaf, strapped to the top of my pack, all the way to Lagg.  BUT, since I dined in the B&B/hotel—big mistake, food swimming in oil—I did no more than taste the bread, which, indeed was quite good.