Having broken the chronological order of blogs in order to announce the birth of six new members of the Misfit Mariners tribe, I will return to the North and our journey back from Enniskillen in the North to Lough Garadice in the Republic.

The road bridge at Enniskillen was the one major obstacle to our getting south. Just approaching it we became aware of the amount of water in the River Erne which, swelled by the wettest August on record, forged through the restricted channel. Piling on the revs we very, very slowly crept between the buttresses. Just as we were breathing a sigh of relief to be in the clear a hire boat came into view. It had taken the safer line round the island upstream of the bridge, unfortunately this meant that we had to go hard to starboard in order to pass it on the correct side. With the river running so fast, the hire boat shot past Ted and Eric as they made their own pedestrian way upstream. A few minutes later, safely tied to the town centre visitor moorings, we supped our tea and giggled with relief: both at the memory of the hirer’s shocked faces as they flew past and in the knowledge that we now had several days cruising where the flow would not decide our destinies.

This was to be our last chance to stock up the boats with discounted booty from the north so several trips were made to the supermarkets. With my mother on her way over from England and due to arrive late afternoon, a fair bit of dashing around was required to get us all ballasted with wine, beer, tobacco, bottles of gas and all the other ‘essentials’ that would be much more expensive once we crossed the border. With mother arriving on time, and plans to get out of the town and off to a quieter mooring just upstream, we were back out on the river by late afternoon. Plans are not a feature of Misfit Mariner’s cruising but the desire to make sure that mum saw some of the waterways and got to the coast and mountains meant that we now had an agenda: three day’s cruising, which would get us back to Swan Island on Lough Garadice, and three days out and about in a hire car.

With the River Erne flowing a lot faster, we knew that the upstream passage was going to take longer than the run down but we had not anticipated that, once on the Upper Lough,  the fixed jetties would be under water. This meant that we would have to stay on the riser moorings, of which there are very few, fortunately their was space on the one at Knockninny which meant that we had a long walk up to the hill overlooking the lough. While most of us rested, Eric, ever the archaeologist, charged about looking at cairns and the remains of hill forts. The view alone made the walk well worthwhile: The following day we past the Hari Krishna community which gave us a bit of a laugh when Ted and Joelle, hearing voices on the walkie tallkies we use between the boats, sang the Hari Krishna song across the airwaves to, what they assumed was, us. I had not had time to tell them that the Krishnas were on the same wavelength. We did not get a reply! Then it was up the Woodford River, through Ballyconnell, and onto Lough Garadice and the sanctuary of Pat’s moorings at Swan Island. This sanctuary was much appreciated after a disturbed night’s sleep in Ballyconnell when the usual drunken idiots had climbed on the boats early in the morning. The river had been closed a few days prior to our arriving on it and we were relieved to see that the levels had dropped enough for us to make slow but steady progress - water levels on Garadice were way above what they had been when we came this way a few weeks earlier. Having organised a hire car we could now explore further than a day’s walk from the boat.

The most famous of Ireland’s prehistoric sites, and over 500 years older than the pyramids, Newgrange seemed a really good destination. Driving to it we assumed that it was a simple matter of parking up, paying a fee and going for a wander. Not so, the visitor centre is miles from the site (where there is no parking) and the only way to get into the site itself is by buying a tour package. You are then taken to the site by bus. The glory of this is that each bus party is allocated a time and a guide; and numbers are controlled so that every visitor can actually get into the burial chamber at the heart of the mound (the powers that run Stonehenge have been taking a careful look at how Newgrange is managed). Joining the masses is not our usual way of doing things but more of this and it could be. We returned to the boat via The Hill of Tara, another important ancient site, and the Norman castle at Trim. 

Having done a day of history we decided that the second day with the car would be spent looking at scenery. With the legendary Donegal coastline just over an hour’s drive away we headed off with high expectations. Sadly, the beauty of Donegal’s coast has rather worked against it and the houses that pack the hills around the sandy bays detract from the landscape. Pre-warned that this might be the case we turned back and headed down the western shore to Sligo before turning east into Glencar. A view as spectacular as any in the Lake District opened up before us and we paused to walk to one of the waterfalls falling into the valley. The final day with the car was spent in the hills to the west of Lough Garadice. The intention was to take a boat tour of Marble Arch caves but, ironically, heavy overnight rain put a stop to that. We did take the limited tour available and walked by the river before heading out for the Shannon Pot,  the source of the River Shannon. This mighty river does not rise as a little spring on a hillside but from a pond in a shallow valley. The ‘pot’ is only about fifty feet round and looks a lot like the sort of ponds that abound in the corners of fields everywhere. The difference is that very few ponds are 30 feet deep with streams running out of them.

After a night in the bar at Swan Island mum was back to England and, Pat having lined up a number of jobs for us, we set to work. Judging by the phone calls and enquires we are now getting it would appear that we are not going to be wanting for something to do.

Of course, you have only read this far to see what news of the puppies. Sadly, the first born pup, Pat, died yesterday despite the best efforts of a local vet. This was a bit of a shock as Pat was the largest of the pups a week ago and his different colouring meant he really stood out for attention. The good news is that the others are fit and thriving:

 The five healthy puppies at day nine.