It’s a couple of days after Christmas. The mornings and evenings are blurring a bit, over-eating, spending time with family, reading. Yesterday we went for a walk in the mountains near-by, ending at Bay Lough. It’s a dark and ominous teardrop shaped lake, hidden up in near the Vee pass. This lake is the junction of three National Waymarked Trails; the Tipperary Heritage Way, East Munster Way, and Avondhu Way. I smiled seeing Elvis on this small outing. I can’t believe we’ve been doing this project for another year!
This year we walked 16 trails, bringing our total to 35 out of 42 National Waymarked Trails completed. Along those 16 trails we walked roughly 1,450km - bringing our total to over 3,000km! As I write this, we only have 7 trails (totalling about 840km) left to walk. The 16 trails we did this year brought us through 14 counties, and took us almost 6 months to do (March - August). During that time we became Great Outdoors Ambassadors, and Leave No Trace Members. We’ve written 32 blog posts and made 45 videos - it’s been a busy year!
The photo above features our nine most popular photos on Instagram this year, so I thought I’d look back on these photos, and maybe add in a few other personal favourites…
And some personal favourites …
Here's the two of us - whenever I go looking for one with us both I’m always surprised by how few we have. So a small personal goal for 2019 is to have more photos with the two of us in them.
A special mention to Donegal …
For being one of the most beautiful places on the planet. We spent about 3 weeks up in Donegal walking about 350km, and it was incredible. When the bad weather rolled in it would hit with a bang, but it always passed - and I the sunshine more than made up for it. We also met some amazing people in Donegal - an extra thank you to Leah and Fly!
Arranmore Island Blog Link.
And Leave No Trace Training!
As I mentioned above, we became Leave No Trace members this year - and through that we had the most amazing chance take part in their training programmes and spreading their important principles! We have the most beautiful planet, and we really need to care for it. For those who are wondering - What is Leave No Trace?
When we stopped walked in September this year we were really hoping to get a few more of the trails done before the end of the year - with only seven left it all feels so close and so far away! We made a video not long after we’d found somewhere to live talking about the walking we’d done so far this year, and in it I can see how much I wanted to try and finish it all before the new year.
Now that the year is actually ending I was worried I would feel stressed or sad that we hadn’t yet completed it all, but I think I’m just feeling more motivated for next spring/summer. I’ve had the chance to write about our adventures for Intrepid Magazine, the Mountain Log, and the incoming Mountain Views Annual (February 2019). I’ve also started a Research Masters. Carl is working on some exciting projects for Tough Soles for the new year. There’s too much to be happy about to let the stress and doubts have any room.
Finally, I’d really like to thank all our Patrons for supporting this project. This support has been incredible, I don’t know how we would do it without you.
Happy New Yearventures to you all!
Thank you Patrons!
Both past and present…
Marcus Cavanaugh, Werner Lange, Jen Carey, Padraig Berry, Bruce Byall, Waymarked Trails App, Renate Lange, Seanie Ryan, Derek Doran, John McCarthy , Garret Cahill, Sascha Dalecke, Nigel McMorris, Stephan & Erika, Delia Lange, Chris Deering, Jodie Gardiner, Peter Clarke, Carolyn O'Dwyer, Patrick Berry, Tempvs Frangit, Alan Grant, Colin Whittaker, Terry Rogers, Declan Jennings, Clare Coyle, Maureen Leahy, Angela Berry, Lio Benz, Mike MurphChops, Katherine Gypson, Shilei Z, John Healy, Paul Meagher, Foil, Arms & Hog, Wassim Derguech
We’ve made our own Tough Soles maps! These maps are free to use, remix, and redistribute under CC-BY 4.0. All you need to do is attribute us! Here are all the maps we’ve made.
If you like our blog you can subscribe to it here!
If you really like it, you can support us on Patreon