Day-by-day trail itinerary

The Kerry Way: 12-day itinerary

Two walks joined end to end. The first sixteen kilometres are Killarney National Park: pavement out of town on the Muckross road, lakeshore path along Castlelough Bay, then tarmac avenues past Muckross House among jaunting cars and coach parties, and a tunnel under the N71 to the foot of Torc Waterfall. A stone stairway lifts you out of the crowds in twenty minutes and the Old Kenmare Road takes over, a made surface on open moor under Torc and Mangerton, boardwalk across the bog at Crinnagh, and the oak-hung cut of Esknamucky Glen before a steep drop to the N71 at Galway's Bridge. The leg returning from Kenmare joins just short of Derrycunihy Church, so everything behind that point is walked twice on a full circuit. Beyond the road it is oakwood and gravel down to the Upper Lake, level lakeshore to Lord Brandon's Cottage and the six-arch bridge over the Gearhameen, then quiet tarmac up the Black Valley. The second walk begins where the valley road gives out past Cummeenduff Lough: unsurfaced track under Brassel Mountain, rough ground round Broaghnabinnia, and a steep pull to the pass into the Bridia Valley at about 300 m, which is where shelter ends. The drop off it is loose and awkward, and the section finishes on top of the Lack Road, the old droving zigzag out of the Bridia that is the crux of the whole circuit and gets materially harder the wetter the ground is.