This Weekend

Monday is the Halloween/October Bank Holiday and in a supreme feat of optimism I also booked tomorrow off to have one last long weekend and hopefully get a load of cycling and hillwalking done. Unfortunately, the weather is determined to slap down those plans in dramatic style.

Storm Austen is coming through tonight, thankfully mostly missing us here in Donegal, but his pal Storm Beolo is following right behind and scheduled to hit the North West with a bang on Saturday into Sunday.

Just to rub it in, tomorrow looks to be the best day of the weekend but I have the car booked in for a service. Hopefully, I’ll manage at least a walk in the local woods in sunshine.

There is a slim chance that Sunday will be decent if I head East. I’ll look at it again tomorrow and Saturday but I’m making provisional plans for a walk in The Mournes on Sunday. So far, it looks like it will be cold and windy but mostly dry…

Last Weekend

In stark contrast to a weekend full of yellow and orange warnings, last weekend was fantastically good. I attended another leader’s training session with the Bluestack Ramblers. This one was sponsored by Mountaineering Ireland so it was led by Paul Kellagher from Accessible Adventures Ireland.

The focus was group management and covered various topics including river crossings and working on steep ground.

If we sent in a written request for the weather then it wouldn’t have been much better. One of those absolutely perfect Autumn days: clear blue skies and barely a breath of wind so lovely and warm in the sunny spells with no windchill 👌

It was a really enjoyable session and gave me a very different perspective on hillwalking, especially as a leader.

Check out Paul’s Facebook Post for loads of great photos but I particularly like these few:

I only managed to take two myself:

Hopefully I’ll get some more great photos on Sunday ☀️🤞