Sunshine and Showers

Saturday 27th July

Ireland Trip - Day 3

I slept like a log last night, despite being shaken awake at nearly midnight by Claire telling me there was someone outside with a torch looking in. I couldn't see or hear anyone, and we eventually agreed that the torch light was actually the flashing LED on the carbon monoxide detector, and that someone had probably just turned their car round on our car park.

We had toasted bagels with cream cheese and bacon for breakfast (highly recommended by the way), and then set off for our walk round Muckross lake. We moved George to the car park by Muckross House, as we thought he was less likely to be broken into there. We were pleasantly surprised to find there was no charge for parking there, and there were plenty of spaces left on the car park! Not so much like the Lake District after all. There was even a special section for camper vans, but we didn't notice that until after we'd parked in the normal car park.

We were both feeling a bit lethargic this morning, probably from spending so much time on the road. We felt the same when we did our American road trip. We were glad to get out in the fresh air and stretch our legs. We walked about 8 miles or so, of pretty easy walking. We didn't see many other walkers apart from within a few hundred metres of car parks, and they were not really walkers, but sightseers. Similar to the Japanese tourists we encountered in America, only most of them weren't Japanese.

The weather was very changeable today. We've had about 4 heavy rain showers during the 3 hours or so we were walking, but it's been so warm we haven't really wanted our waterproofs on. In between the rain there's been bright sunshine and intense mugginess. There is a lot of woodland here, and it all seems much wilder than English woodland. Lots of moss and lichen growing up trees, and the whole of the forest floor is carpeted with ferns and other green stuff. There could be thousands of leprechauns hiding in there and we wouldn't have seen them.

At the end of the walk we enjoyed a cup of tea and some shortbread biscuits pilfered from the ferry under a huge tree in the gardens of Muckross House. The tree was a bit of a magnet for tree climbing children, together with some tree climbing granddads as well, all of whom were being told off by their mothers/daughters respectively for doing something so dangerous and reckless.

We got stuck in a big traffic jam getting through Killarney afterwards, and decided we'd like to try and avoid the town in future if at all possible. The whole place is jam packed full of hotels and B&B's, and is swarming with tourists.

We'd spotted a couple of campsites marked on the ordnance survey map the other side of Killarney which we'd decided to check out. We weren't holding out a great deal of hope after the grey roads saga, but to our surprise, both the marked campsites were exactly where they were supposed to be! We didn't like the first one (too many caravans and children), but the second one seemed OK, so that's where we are. It's a bit more expensive than we wanted, but there didn't seem to be any other sites nearby. We haven't seen any as we've been driving round anyway.
We've both had nice hot showers, at a price of €1 for 7 minutes 30 seconds, which I think is a personal best for me, especially considering I managed to shave BOTH legs within my allotted time.

We've parked George up in a carefully chosen position, equidistant from the showers, toilets, and footballing children. We've pitched our drive away awning for the first time, and had our first barbecue of the trip. We've also tested our carbon monoxide detector out, and are very glad we bought it. Now, I bet when I mentioned the carbon monoxide detector further up the page, you thought we were a pair of geeks. Or worse. Well, tonight we decided to do a little experiment. Dicing with death if it wasn't for our little life saving gadget on board. It had started raining, so we moved the barbecue into the (ventilated) awning. Before you start gasping in horror, and posting "I told you so" comments, WE KNOW IT'S DANGEROUS. Within a few minutes, the CO level had gone up from 0 to 58 (parts per million, just in case you were wondering). I could feel myself dying just from looking at the reading. We quickly moved the barbecue and lived to tell the tale. Although it would take about 8 hours of exposure at 50 ppm to cause any ill effects (i.e. a headache), we were shocked at how quickly the level went up.

Anyway, I think it's about time I told you a bit more about George. George is a 1995 Toyota Granvia. He started his life in Japan, and was imported a couple of years ago and converted from a people carrier to a camper van, by a company called G&P Campers just outside Stone. We went for a look at their campers a few weeks ago, and he was just there, waiting for us. We snapped him up, as usually there is a waiting list while they do the conversion, but George had been part exchanged, and was all ready to go on his next adventure. We're certain that his previous owner had hardly used him as a camper. The conversion is like brand new. In Japan, they don't use their cars that much, and they don't salt their roads, so George is low mileage and has a great body.
George has a pop top roof, sink with cold water tap, hob, fridge, "rock and roll" bed, diesel powered heating, air conditioning, swivelling front passenger seat, LED lighting, DVD player (!) and loads of storage. We've had a rear bike rack and awning rail fitted, and will be having a roof rack put on when we get home for the boats. He's an automatic with a 3 litre diesel engine (!) with 4 wheel drive and big tyres. His likes drinking diesel so we try not to go too fast. We're looking forward to some winter trips when the 4WD and super tyres will come in handy.

Tomorrow we're hoping to do a walk from the campsite, which means we avoid the stress of Killarney and don't have to worry about detaching the awning. The one thing we forgot to get, that we really could have done with, is a drive away awning attachment kit. Basically, it makes it easy to attach and detach, leaving the awning standing while we go off exploring in the van. We'll be ordering one as soon as we get home, but for now, once attached, the awning is a fairly permanent fixture.


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Location:Killarney National Park