A few days ago we sat in a restaurant in Derry/Londonderry pondering how we would get through the next section; a 60 km stretch with no food, water or accommodations available aside from the start and the end. We passed a outdoor store which was having a sale and decided we should camp for 2 nights. So we purchased a couple of sleeping bags, a two man tent, mini cook stove, pots, tarp, extra pack covers and a bunch of food from the dollar store (PoundWorld) and we were set. Back at our hotel that night we rigged everything up to our packs to ensure we could carry the extra weight. It added about 5 pounds to my pack and about 10 to Lisa's as she volunteered to carry the tent.
Tuesday morning we were off, after a short train ride to Castlerock we went into the forest and began climbing through the mountain range. Remember when I say mountain range it is not the Rockies with the highest peak measuring 450 m gain but it was tough going. Upon reaching the top of one mountain on the first day we were rewarded with views well worth the work. Day one we hiked about 20 km, day two 26 km and the last day about 14 km into town. We camped where we could and purified water with the system I brought from home and made it work. Our directions from the website were sketchy at times so some time was lost wandering through fields looking for our next sign post, but the map clearly showed a place called "Murder Hole" which we practically ran through. On the third day when we walked into Dungiven, I was very happy to see a town again, a comfortable bed and hot shower were well earned.
Due to time constraints we had to revisit the route we would take to continue on, bus schedules also were not working to our advantage but we came up with a plan and more details will follow.
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