So if you’ve read my previous cycling blogpost:
You’ll know that I could not let the fact that there was one cycle I didn’t complete go. It was like my white whale, except, you know considerably safer than chasing a white whale. I was going to repeat the cycle, taking a lot more rests along the way, and this time during a much cooler time of year. So on a fairly cool April day in 2017, I set off. I first stopped for a rest at the Glenville mass rock about four miles or so from the Nagle mountains. This is one of the most scenic mass rocks I’ve ever visited. It’s got wonderful trees and a nice calming river running through it. I think this may have been the first time I ever visited it, usually more eager to push on to the Nagle mountains. But since then I’ve visited it many times, it’s so calming and peaceful.
Such beautiful trees
So Calm!
Interesting Rock Formation
After my rest I headed on to the Nagle mountains. I’ve another post about the Nagles, one of my favourite places in the world:
I had gotten up at about seven so the day was still nice and cool.
A grey day on the Nagles
Trees!
Even on this cloudy day still a significant view into the distance
View to the North East
Top of Knocknaskagh
So I reached the cairn at the top of Knocknaskagh mountain and sat down to take in the wonderful view. Reaching this cairn was usually my end goal during my first excursions to the Nagle mountains, but as I got more adventurous and started exploring more of the mountains, the cairn played a different role, like a couch for me to collapse on after a day’s adventuring, though not quite the same because at that point I would still have to get down the mountain and have a long cycle!
Often times I have the entire mountain range to myself, but this time I met a fellow mountain traveller, and I’m so glad I did, while I didn’t learn his name and can’t remember what he looked like, the conversation I had with him was fascinating, and started off a very strong interest I have. He told me the very cairn I was sitting on could be as much as a few thousand years old. I had never thought about this before. How did cairns get there? I always assumed they were put in place some time in the twentieth or maybe nineteenth century, it never occurred to me that they were very, very ancient things. And from that point on, going to any new place whether it be the Knockmealdowns or Three Castle Head, one of the highlights for me now has become finding the cairns. He pointed out a cairn to the north. I would go looking for it later in the year, but would not actually successfully find it until 2020. I talk about this cairn in this blogpost. I don’t know is it bad blogging etiquette or something to link the same blogpost twice, but, eh, who’s going to stop me?:
He also told me something that has made me a bit sad ever since. The cairn at the top of Knocknaskagh used to be much bigger, but they moved parts of it away to make way for the trig point. Normally I like trig points, they’re a cool way of showing you that you’ve officially reached the top of the mountain, but there was less education on the importance of preserving ancient cairns at the time, so unfortunately the Knocknaskagh cairn is now incomplete.
I told him about my fifty mile plus journey. He asked me was I walking it. I said no way would I have the level of fitness to do that! He headed off then, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget the fascinating conversation I had with him.
Mountains of heather both figuratively and literally
Another Cairn!
I stopped briefly by the beautiful river Blackwater, with Ballyhooly castle nearby. Irish castles and other old buildings are one of my fascinations, but unfortunately this one is a private residence. Good castles for exploring can be hard to come by in Ireland. Usually there’s almost nothing left of them, the years having not been kind to them. But if they are fairly well intact, there are usually three possibilities, either they are a private residence, they are locked up for reasons of the safety of the general public, or, like Blarney castle, they are paid attractions that are full of people, and I tend to take in a place better when I’m on my own or there are very few people around. So the castles that are good for exploring are few and far between, but when you find them they are something special.
River Blackwater and Ballyhooly Castle
After my brief rest, I headed into Glanworth for some historic building exploration. I’d seen it all the previous year, but this year my body wasn’t slowly but surely shutting down due to heat exhaustion, so in my view that was a big plus.
Epic Camera Angle, I Am Good At Cameras!
I arrived in Glanworth, and went for a walk around Glanworth castle. There’s something really beautiful about the fact that these castles were once bastions of the power accumulated by one person or by a small group of people, but now, everyone, no matter who they are, can treat them as their own and can go for a lovely walk within the castle.
Awesome Tree In the Grounds Of Glanworth Castle
When this castle was first build its builders never even dreamed that it would have such a high quality handrail!
So peaceful it is almost delicious!
More castley goodness. Castley is a word now.
Walls of Epicness!
Even more walls of epicness!
This part seems to have faired better then the others in terms of surviving through the centuries.
I love this view
Glanworth Abbey in the distance
Glanworth Bridge, the oldest and narrowest bridge in Europe
Glanworth Friary
Not a grill-ary but a fry-ary. (I deserve condemnation for that.)
More Fry-ary!
I like the huge windows they used to have back then!
Majestic!
All of the buildings and structures I have just described are so old that they predate youtube by a very long time. But would you believe me if I told you I was about to see something that was so old that by comparison everything I encountered in Glanworth might as well have been built last week? Of course you would, because you read my last cycling blogpost. And if you don’t read the rest of my blogposts, why not? You are missing out on, eh, adequately written blogposts. Your loss. Now on to Labbacallee!
I reached Labbacallee, the highlight of the trip. I have only visited twice in total but writing this makes me hope I’ll get to visit it many more times.
Here it is!
I arrived at Labbacallee, the weather was still cool when I arrived, it looked like I was going to make it to the end of this trip, and my unsuccessful trip would be undone! (By repeating the trip and getting it right this time, no time travel with its paradoxes and getting trapped in the Edwardian era necessary!)
The only bad thing is that the tomb is right next to a road, which does take away from the grandeur a bit, but at least it’s a quiet road, if it was a loud road that would ruin the experience for me.
Whenever I think of this wedge tomb I’m absolutely blown away by how old it is. If I was to meet someone from the Roman Empire, I feel I would practically be talking to an alien, so separate in time would I be from them that I could not even begin to understand their values or they understand mine, and yet, Labbacallee Wedge Tomb is twice as old as the Roman Empire or more. I don’t think I’d be able to understand the point of view or values of the people who built all of the buildings and the very old bridge in Glanworth, and yet, the Glanworth buildings are so new, that their age is nothing in comparison, Labbacallee is 4000 to 5000 years old, the span of time between now and when the historical buildings in Glanworth were built isn’t even factored into an estimate of the wedge tomb’s age.
And it’s got me thinking, the tomb has lived through some dark times. The Mongol Invasions. The Black Death. The Holocaust. It might well stand for the amount of time it has already stood. Will it see brighter, happier times? A time when most forms of bigotry and prejudice have been eliminated. A time when humanity actually takes care of the planet instead of risking climate armageddon? A time when most or all debilitating life threatening illnesses have been eliminated? What will our world look like if this tomb survives for another 5000 years? I wonder will humanity have colonized the solar system by then, and a spacecraft will land next to the tomb, and it will be a tour from Saturn’s moon Titan, and the tour guide will say, “It’s very hard for us to imagine what it must have been like, the fact that when this tomb was built, every single human being lived on Earth, and they didn’t even know Titan existed!”
Or bigotry and climate disasters could doom us all. That could also happen. Anyway, I know there’s some of you thinking, “enough of whatever the hell that was, I want to see some more pictures of the damn tomb!
This view is cool because it looks like it’s got teeth!
I wonder did people out walking ever use it to shelter from the rain?
Just bring a sleeping bag!
I wonder when these trees were planted? Because trees live a very long time and the wedge tomb is very old. Another rabbit hole!
Stones!
Those look like nests. The tomb belongs to the birds!
I said goodbye to the ancient tomb that causes me to go all philosophical and I arrived in Fermoy. It was at this point on the last attempt that I felt really weak, but this time I felt really strong. It looked like I was going to make it this time!
Given that the weather was nice and cool, I probably had the energy to cycle straight home. But I wasn’t taking any chances this time. I stopped in a restaurant to have a meal, and I went for a nice relaxing walk around Fermoy.
The River Blackwater in Fermoy
Rivers are great!
After resting in Fermoy, I cycled to Rathcormac (I hate that stretch of road, terrible road surfaces and a ridiculous amount of roundabouts!). Then I stopped in what has since become one of my favourite spots, a bench next to the River Bride, and next to the river is a small wood that is nice for walking.
The River Bride
Small Woodland
The Nagles in the Distance. The beginning of the journey becomes the end or something.
And then I took off for home. Weirdly enough I had a weird energy surge towards the end, so I was able to take a longer way home, and ended up doing 53 miles instead of 52 as it originally would have been. I did entertain keeping going, maybe if I extended out the trip I could go for 60? But no. This extra energy would be all too brief and I would regret it. But 53 miles was the longest I would ever cycle in a single day.
And so it was complete. My only failed cycle ever, had now been avenged, and I had completed the route from the Nagle mountains to Glanworth, to Labbacallee and onto Fermoy and the River Bride. With this beast that haunted my darkest dreams finally slain, I could now figure out something else to do with my life.
Ponderings Of An Autist 
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