22kms
Clear skies again with the promise of another hot day once the most had been burned off.
Our last day on the walk and we had decided we would walk up the canal branch to Longford and try to get us and the dogs on the train back to the car at Maynooth.
At the next lock the keeper told us that there were lots of leaks and it was a bit of a struggle keeping water in some sections. Sure enough later on we noticed that the level was down at least a foot between a couple of locks.
There is currently a lot of work being done on the towpaths creating the walk/ cycle way and dredging and clearing the canal itself. We came upon one of the diggers with a massive arms for scrapping the opposite bank.
After a longer than planned breakfast stop at Foigha bridge waiting for the shop to open it was out onto the Corlea bog where the visitor centre that displays the Neolithic timber trackway has been making a path out to the canal.
It was a lovely peaceful stetch of wildness through the land that time forgot. We passed another little canal house slowly disappearing into the bog.
It was sad to think of all the work and effort that had gone be into the 30 years of building the canal only really funcioning for another 30 before the railways signalled the end to the endeavour apart from a few years over WW2 when fuel shortages encouraged horsedrawn barge transport.
The massive clearance task taken on by the voluntary Ammenity groups over decades was really brought home to us when we got to the Longford branch and saw it was blocked off and unrestored.
Time for a rest with just 8kms to go.
On the outskirts of Longford a roadbridge over the top of the canal shows what little regard the planners of the seventies and eighties had for the amazing structure we had followed across the country for 125kms.
All of Ireland’s inland waterways are a beatiful way to explore what is still”real Ireland”. I hope that the creation of the new walk/cycle tracks and greenways encourage more people out there to enjoy the sadly under-utilised resource.
Mission accomplished.
and across a vast expanse of bog where the turf was being harvested in a way we hadn’t seen before. 
and a derelict lock house with an interior that needed a severe makeover. 
but we needed to go on a bit further to get supplies and camp. Sally headed into Ballymahon, celebrating its massive investment by Centre Parcs, to get dinner while I took all the kit on to Archie’s bridge and set up camp. 
A lovely misty start after a cold clear night. There was a hard frost and our bags had done well to keep us cosy. The problem with the cheap one skin tents is the condensation on nights like that so we spent a while drying gear before heading off. 
The aqueducts are very hard to photograph Lord knows how hard to construct. My admiration for the engineers and labourers of the time grows with every passing km. 
the canal went through a lovely wooded stretch awns the towpath became narrow and lined with primroses. 
No luck beyond Guiness ,lager and crisps which kept us going another 8 kms to the great pub restaurant Nanny Quinns at Thomastown harbour where we had a slap up. 
Near here were moored up the last two working barges on the canal but it must have been awhile ago. 
A nice lad had just got himself a 20 grand bargain. New Diesel engine,7 year old steel hull. Him and some mates were taking it down to Dublin to live on. Their first boat trip. It had already involved a trip to hospital for a load of stitches after the lock key had spun on the rachet and cracked yer mans head open. Good luck to them. 
In my relaxed state I was intent on starting to walk the wrong way, East rather than west, but luckily I now have a track buddy to put me straight. And I’m still following arrows 
We followed this wall, of St Patrick’s college for a good long way, they must have some serious amount of land on campus. We went up through two locks and noticed how short and narrow they appear to be. You’d only get one boat in at a time. But there is almost no boats on the move anyway. This was the only one we saw all day. 
After we walked the Grand Canal a few years ago we thought how underused the whole amazing resource was and the Royal seems the same. There’s some fine bridges that have to accommodate the canal, train track, river and one bridge even had a arch just for the towpath. 
where they were very keen on waterpolo and had numerous goals slung across the water. 
Steve Barham 