Ireland Trip - Day 11 (and a bit about days 7-10 too)
Sorry about the lack of blogs over the last few days. I haven't been in the right mood for blogging, and if I'd written one then it would have been boring at best, or upset someone at worst. I find it hard to write about social gatherings.
For all my planning and timetabling, we woke up on day 7 to torrential rain, which didn't stop all day, so we didn't do much walking at all. I got soaked just going for my morning wee (by the rain I hasten to add), and again while filling George's water tank up, and again while turning his gas cylinder off. And so on. It was a very wet day. We had lunch on Inch beach again, without the disasters of the previous visit, and arrived in Cahersiveen late afternoon.
We made the most of the laundry and bathroom facilities at the house Jen and Andrew had rented, and slept in a proper bed in an actual bedroom for the first time in what seemed like ages. I did wake up the first night, really confused, thinking I was in George but unable to open the sliding door to get out. I figured it out in the end, but not before I'd turned all the lights on and woken Claire up.
We had a lovely meal with Jen and Andrew at a local seafood restaurant the first night. The following day, the rain continued. It was getting quite depressing. We put our waterproofs on and walked into town, and went to what was probably the worst museum I've ever been to (The Barracks in Cahersiveen). The best I can say about it it that it looked exciting from the outside, and it was dry inside.
Things improved on the Friday, as not only did the weather pick up, but it was the start of the annual music and arts festival in the town. The event we'd been looking forward to most was the Terrier Racing (not sure what this has to do with music or arts, but, who cares!).
This takes place on a side street in the town, and basically involves anyone who thinks their terrier stands a fighting chance, unleashing their dog and hoping it will chase after a stuffed rabbit pulled along on a rope. There are several races, and I have absolutely no idea how it was decided which terriers were in which race, whether there were heats, semi finals etc, or indeed who won!
There was one big fight on the track, between two white and brown terriers, resulting in them losing the race to the underdog, a chubby black terrier. There were several races where either the dogs couldn't be bothered to run, or all ran off the wrong way, and a couple where only one dog crossed the finish line, and that was because it was chasing it's owner!
I felt a bit sorry for a nice little Westie who was clearly well prepared and focused on the race, but was unfortunate to be up against 4 other terriers who were much better built for running. It was the only race in which all the dogs finished. The Westie finished last, but I could tell it's owner was very proud.
The following day (Saturday), we decided we were missing George, and were over socialised, so we moved out and went to stay at a camp site the other side of town called Mannix Point. We've got a waterside pitch in the motorhome and caravan area, although to my relief, there are more campervans and motorhomes than caravans. We're glad we've got George and we're not in the tent area, because they're all a bit close together.
Today we've been over to Valentia Island and had a good look round. It hasn't rained all day and we got some pretty good views from the highest point. We decided to walk up, as it was €5 per car to drive up, plus the price of a new clutch from the smell of other people's cars. I was a bit peeved to find that we still had to pay €2 each to walk up there (not exactly encouraging people to exercise are they?), but we coughed up and enjoyed the view from the top, along with the smug feeling of having burnt off maybe half of one of the bacon rashers we had for breakfast. And the freedom of not having all those 20c coins jangling round in my purse and weighing me down.
We came back to the campsite at tea time, and I achieved yet another personal best in the token operated shower. 5 minutes!!! No time for shaving this time though. We've enjoyed a barbecue and a glass of wine whilst watching the sun go down across the sea.
We're both very excited about tomorrow. Weather permitting, we are going on a boat trip to the Skellig Islands, which host seabird colonies several miles off the coast. They also used to host some monks, but we're more interested in the seabirds, in particular the puffins.
This will be our second attempt this year to see puffins. The first (Skomer Island - Pembrokeshire - in April) was a nice trip, but rather disappointing in terms of puffin spotting (we saw about 3). Tomorrow should also be a nice trip regardless, but will be a whole lot better if the puffins, and the recently hatched pufflings are still there. We've made some enquiries, and they were still on the island on Friday, so hopefully they won't have moved out yet.
When we get back from the boat trip, we will have to make a start on the drive back across the country, as we have to catch our ferry home at lunch time the following day. We'd like to get the majority of the driving behind us tomorrow, but we'll have to see how tired we are after all the sea air.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Cahersiveen, County Kerry
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