A Bothy Bikepacking Adventure – Please like, share and follow and help me to grow my channel.

Join me as we discover the beautiful Greenway from Westport to Newport as I head off to spend a night in the Brogan Carroll bothy, at Letterkeen in the Nephin Wilderness area along the Wild Atlantic Way, Ireland.

The song used in the clip is ‘Your Light’ by Aine, from a superb album called ‘Aloha Got Soul’. For more info in this and to support the artists, please see:

https://alohagotsoul.com/blogs/blog/strut-records-compilation-of-soul-aor-disco-in-hawaii-1979-1985

I am in your life and I really understand you like we are alive breathing in this heart. I am in you tonight. Yeah. Sun, you shine in me and through me. Your light everywhere I turn here with me in the night time. Wo. [Music] Yeah. Is it wonderful? Isn’t it? Is it wonderful to be alive? Be love. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Being alive. Don’t let the rain in. Let the crystal shine. Don’t let the rain in long outside. Sunny, when you smile, I feel you. And I love you. You’re like, we are safe faithfully held together in your loving heart. You’re like [Music] [Applause] This is one of the first videos that I am doing for my sacred spokes exploring life’s cycles podcast. So, it’s probably going to be quite rusty. Um, but you’ve got to start somewhere. If you don’t start, you just don’t start, dear. So, here I am. So, um I’ve been I’ve been wanting to get away uh just for a short break um for ages and I’ve been procrastinating. I don’t know why I’ve been procrastinating, but I’ve just been like sat down in my room or just in the house and just staring at stuff. Um I don’t know why. Life kind of happens. Um, maybe I’m a bit tired from all the work that I’ve been doing. Uh, late nights and things like that cuz I I run a bar. Um, natural wine bars. You probably know if you know me. If you don’t, that’s what I do. One of the things I do. Anyway, at the moment I’m in a Bothorthy, by the way. So, if you don’t know what a Bothorthy is, uh, look them up. They’re uh basically all shepherd’s huts and things like this and they’re they’re found predominantly in um in the UK um Lake District, Scotland, Wales, that sort of thing. So the they’re super um and the thing is if you stay in a Borthy, the general consensus if you take something with you to leave, whether that’s a little bit of food, some candles. So, as you can see, I’ve got my little uh camping setup here. And what have we got? Let me show you. So, this has been kind of pretty useful. It’s a uh Uquip um little camping stool. It doesn’t give you much. Just let me adjust that. Yeah, it doesn’t give you a great deal of purchase. It’s what 10 in off the ground or something like that. But it means that you’re not actually sat on the ground. So, I’ve been wondering if I got some knee pads. It make it quite a nice little meditation stool. That like that’s actually quite comfy. I’ve got my little stone here. Not very lightweight. Wouldn’t really recommend bicycle touring with a uh a stone or rock of this size. Useful as though it is. I’m just being silly. This is pretty cool though. It’s a a titanium spork. It’s got the long handle so you can you can um you can get it in to uh these yolks. So, uh this is real terat. I think the Norwegian army uh used that as their ration food. Bloody tasty as well. That was the reindeer stew that was. So, sorry, Santa Claus, but you know, I’m dear. [Music] That’s not a good sound. I can’t hear any gas in it. Bloody hell. Hopefully, that will do me coffee in the morning, but oh my goodness. I thought I had more than that. Never mind. Always make sure you got enough gas for your for your trip. Not to worry. I got this secondhand. Some bloke was selling some old equipment and I just love the little handle. Just feels dead nice. So I normally carry two of these because I always think if I’ve got two and I meet someone on the trail. Turn that round. It’s always nice to offer someone a cup of tea or a coffee. You know, it’s just a nice thing to do, isn’t it? Hospitality. So I’ve got I got that secondhand as well. 15 quid. little titanium uh you know cook pot from my Alp kit. Uh they’re pretty good that sort of stuff. So yeah, it’s amazing, you know, how much stuff I’ve kind of accumulated over the years. And it’s also amazing actually how little you you really do need to get away. But, you know, I suppose if um if if you’re into the outdoors and you want to buy the stuff, then you know, there’s nothing wrong with that. I do try to get stuff secondhand when I can. This is one of my first videos. So, if you do like it, then, you know, do all that subscribe and all that sort of stuff cuz um hopefully I’ll be able to do more. And yeah, like I say, I was procrastinating a lot. Um and I just thought, right, you you know, you need you need to get out and and just go and have a night a night away. And luckily for me, I live in an area where I can just hop on the bike from the front door, cycle off, and you know, a couple of hours later, I’m in the countryside. I’m very aware that, you know, I’m not in a war zone um and that I have the the freedom um you know, and the privilege to to get out and do this sort of thing. So, thank you for for everybody um that has enabled me to get to this point in my life and to be able to enjoy these things that I enjoy doing. Not everybody has this opportunity. So, you know, it’s pretty windy out there. Turn that round. Look, starting to rain. Yeah, you can’t really see, but it is it is kind of quite windy. I was up over that mountain earlier on. Um, which was nice on the on the old fat bike which enables you to do it. I was going to head over there. Um, there’s another bobby p further up. Um, but to be honest, yeah, I’m a bit tired. So, um, here we are. Home sweet home. Well, folks, yeah, if you do like the video, give us a follow, give us a like, and all that stuff. Much appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, I’ll be I’ll be doing a a lot more sort of random videos, people that I meet on my journeys. Um, so there’s yeah, we’re going to have a good crack. So, come and join me for the journey. Hopefully, you’ll see me progress as a presenter. You’ll hopefully put up with my amazing jokes. Whatever you’re doing, do it well. Take risks, calculated ones, especially if you’re in the ocean. Thanks for watching. I I will see you soon. to be alive. Being alive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Being alive. [Music] Don’t let the rain in. Let the crystal shine. Don’t let the rain in the long stop. When you smile, I feel you and I love you. You’re like, we are faithfully held together in your heart. What a beautiful day. So, I’m nearly I’m nearly home now. I’m uh I’m just outside of Westport. And if you’re from Westport, probably recognize this little stopoff point, the Greenway station. It’s a lovely little uh lovely little stopoff point. And that’s the way to Westport. Uh the clock I think the clock is probably right twice a day. So if you hear the right time, it’s the correct time. Yeah. So it’s amazing actually. Um, you know, I’ve been procrastinating for some reason, like feeling stuck and not um, it’s not that I’ve not wanted to go out of the house, but um, it’s kind of like almost feeling trapped. Um, it’s weird. I don’t know whether that’s because um you know I’ve got life things happening as everyone does, but I think I remember my sibling Lucy said to me once um just do it. Well, and um anyway, they um yeah, they said just do it. And I mean it’s true. It’s like if you’re procrastinating, uh sometimes you’ve got to say to yourself, just just do it. Just get out there and yeah, just uh just start. And it’s like me with the the podcast thing, you know, the sacred spokes. Um not that I haven’t been working on it, but I think I just need to start putting videos up and posting them and what’s the best that can happen. Uh yeah, so that’s what I’m doing. Anyway, I’ve had a one night break. um a one night um trip away over to the Nefins and it’s just beautiful. If I’m being honest, I didn’t really get too much uh quality sleep last night cuz it was howling and um it was really chucking it down. Um and I think actually I’ blown up the mat that I was sleeping on just it was probably just a little bit too firm. And I do like to have just like a normal kind of foamy camping mat underneath as well. So, um, and I was sleeping on a concrete floor, so but my back’s all right. So there’s always a silver lining.