Donegal Sionnach 2007 - De La Salle Scout Group Expeditions Series

Donegal Sionnach 2007

Above: The team from the 3rd De La Salle Scout Troop on the shore of Lough Belshade.

It is a long long long way from Waterford City to the Bluestacks in County Donegal but that's where we were headed on our Sionnach foray this year as the Knockmealdowns would have been way too handy for us. The 3rd's Sionnach team this year was Brian Haughney, Dean Purcell and Ruairi O'hOgartaigh with Colm Ennis along as usual to drive the car. If you drive 260 miles through Waterford, Kilkenny, Laois, Offaly, Westmeath, Roscommon, Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal there is a good chance that someone in the car will get strangled, we would get hopelessly lost or get stuck behind a circus/funeral/hospital protest for several hours. Fortunately none of these things happened and in a remarkable feat we made it to Donegal town in about five and a half hours. Worryingly a new Group record for the longest time ever spent in a car without stopping which raised concerns about the hydration status of everyone in the car. Need to drink more water lads.

Above: Ready to roll for Basecamp.

In Donegal town we hit Subway as Colm doesn't do McDonalds and a fairly impressive meal was served. The GPS/map reader was fed with a cookie (Ruairi) and we were off in search of Lough Eske which we missed despite it being fairly enormous. Eventually we found where we were looking for and checked in before the short walk to base camp at Edergole. All of the ground in Donegal is still sopping wet, something which hadn't changed since the Donegal Suas 2001. We eventually found a good damp spot and that was it for the night.

Above: The impressive Doonana waterfall.

(Click to view a larger image)

Saturday morning was clear enough and we had good views back down Lough Eske while we waited to check out. From Edergole we were on a track until we reached the impressive Doonana Waterfall. Not quite the Mahon Falls in full flow but it wasn't bad. We said goodbye to the track there and struck out across the bog to high camp at Lough Belshade. It was really tough going and we were soon up to our knees in muck. The mysterious white dog that kept following everybody didn't seem to bothered though. If the whole route was going to be like this walk along the Corabber River then this was going to be the toughest Sionnach ever.

Above: Across the bog along the Corabber River.

Of course when we got to the lake we discovered that they had moved the high camp to the far end so more bog hopping followed but we were getting more skillful at it by then. We found a good spot beside the stream that flows into the lake and got the tents up and the lunch on. Lough Belshade is a fine big lake which is towered over by the granite peaks of Na Cruacha Gorm. We didn't hang around after lunch and were quickly off up to Loughinisland col from where we would leave all bogginess behind and enter good hard granite terrain. There was a lot of boulder hopping going on for a while and the challenge was to stay on boulders only and keep off the grass (Leave No Trace and all that).

Above: Almost at Loughinisland col with Lough Belshade behind.

All of the peaks were called Spot Height this and Spot Height that which is kind of boring but from the peak of Aduff (641m) we headed for 642 and then 518 and so on. It was good weird country though. A bit moon like I would have said. We were one of only three teams ahead of schedule so we got to do the full hike right out as far as Binmore from where we followed a stream back towards the lake. We obviously didn't listen very well to the instructions on the easy way to get back to high camp as along with the team from Muff (yes there is such a place) we found ourselves up to our neck in gorse bushes, boulders, trees and heather. This was worse than the bog. You never knew when you were going to end up disappearing down a crevasse. It was a bit of a race back to high camp with the lads from Muff and we were just pipped at the post. We'll get them next time.

Above: The granite formations of the Blue Stacks.

We fed ourselves, we fed the dog, we wondered why the blade on Ruiari's Scouting Ireland penknife was more like a spoon than a knife. We wondered why Dean wore shorts on the mountains even when it was freezing/boggy, we made our boat from the bits and pieces that the staff had given us during the day and we took it easy in that early evening mountain weekend kind of way. It was a bit foggier the next morning but we were up early enough so that we could get away reasonably early for the long road trip back to Waterford. After the Scouts Own we took a photo on Lough Belshade's private beach and headed back across the bog towards Lough Fad. The boat racing was going on there and ours successfully made it right across the lake gaining us a huge bag of marshmallows which would later end up all over the bottom of Colm's car. Hats off to us for the superb design, production and sailing though.

Above: The winning boat design, production and sailing team.

From Lough Fad we followed a series of lakes, each one slightly different to the last until we hit the last checkpoint on the far side of Lough Gulladuff. From there it was a steep drop back down to the track which would bring us back to Edergole and our car. That last section along the road was longer than we expected and we also met the owner of the white dog who was being shouted at by a farmer for leaving his dog run around the mountain all weekend. We had done it and all was left was to sweep down the east side of the country and back home. Rumours that we filled the boot with fireworks on the way are greatly exaggerated, we only bought sparklers.

Above: The white one.

So from Donegal it was Tyrone, Monaghan, Louth, onto the motorway, over the Boyne Bridge, Meath, Dublin, under the Port Tunnel, Kildare, Carlow, Kilkenny and finally Waterford. We can report that the Subway in Carlow is not a patch on the one in Donegal town. We had stormed across the impressive Blue Stacks and travelled through sixteen counties in one weekend - not bad going. Well done to the people at AA Travel planner, the dog, the Sionnach staff, the nice people at Subway and us of course.

Above: On the summit of Ben Aduff.

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