I'd overestimated the length of the journey and parked outside an abandoned church at the foot of the Maumturk mountains shrouded in pitch darkness and absolute silence. As my eyes adjusted I saw the light of farm houses dotted around the landscape. Dawn wasn't long in coming and I set off along a muddy track towards the shore of Lehanagh Lough. My way got progressively more waterlogged until I could go no further and all I managed to do was get my feet wet (I later read that Maumturk Mountains are one of the two wettest places in Ireland). I had intended to climb up a mountain to

So there I am standing on one side of the Inagh Valley. A huge expanse bordered by mountains. I'm up a lonely farm track with not a soul near me when I hear a cough from behind. Startled, I spin around, but there's no one there. It took me a while to realise that the noise came from a lone cyclist who - from my vantage point - is but a speck on a thin grey line of road several hundred metres distant. A lesson in how far sound can travel. A few weeks later I was walking along the other side of the valley. The only sound my own foot steps. Just as I was thinking how I was in a very