Last walk

Whew! What a final exam that was! It started out innocently enough with a ride in this old bus circa 1932.


We knew we were in for some weather as mentioned yesterday. It was raining when we left. We should have been tipped off to the difficulty level by our guide's footwear. Usually, he wears Topsiders and strolls along the trail. We toil behind thinking jealous thoughts. Today, though, he was in his heavy, waterproof boots AND had an extra shirt on. This was why -

We got into these traditional boats which hold about 15 people. In the old days, they would have had four oarsmen but now they have outboard motors. That's our captaiin and in a few minutes he'll be covered in a waterproof poncho and this woman will be sheltering behind an umbrella. The winds began to blow and the seas rose. We were drenched in spray for the next half-hour. Not a lot of pictures were taken on this trip due to the weather.


We stopped at an open air eatery for lunch - it took us an hour and a half to navigate two lakes, a river and one rapids where we had to get out and walk around. We thought we might have had to portage!
After lunch it was time to walk back through the mountain 'gap' to Killarney. This was a journey of 7 miles with 2 miles uphill on switchbacks. It was very misty in the mountains and the only picture we managed to get on this road was just below the big hill.


The scenery was lovely and got better the higher we climbed. Sheep were grazing all over the hillsides. Horse clopped past us at regular intervals. They were usually pulling a trap with people out doing the road the easy way. Although, the thought of jouncing around in one of those carts wasn't too appealing. Thank goodness, we managed to walk the whole way. This was our reward -



It's all over now. We're having a wind up dinner and we'll get our leaving certificates. We still have to walk into town (about 15 minutes) to the restaurant. Oh, my legs!