Ireland day 13 - Friday 17th June

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It was lovely when we woke up; definitely a day for shorts.

Evelyn, our host from last night had recommended a route around the coast road towards our next venue, which we decided to follow. We both agreed that Evelyn is an amazing host, the best we’ve met so far on this trip. The annex we stayed in was spotlessly clean, the beds comfortable, and the fridge was really well stocked with an excellent choice of food for a DIY breakfast. We took advantage of her generosity, and had sausage, scrambled eggs and tomato, with apple juice and tea / coffee to drink. We were set up for the day!

Our first stop was in beautiful little village called Timoleague where there is a ruined Friary which had been lived in by Franciscan Monks until the latter part of the 18th century. We had a bit of a wander around the remaining buildings, which are now used as a burial site for the village. There was scaffolding in part of it, so we weren’t able to access all the areas on the self-tour booklet, but there was still plenty to explore. I was delighted to find the nearby geocache ?

As we drove on around the coast we saw a lovely sandy beach where the waves lapping onto the shore were small and gentle. I finally got my Irish cold-water fix! I struggled into my cossie in Sherri’s back seat before walking the 200 or so metres down the gently sloping beach to reach the water – the tide was very much out! The water was pleasantly cool, but because the beach was so flat I would have to walk a looooong way out to get enough depth to swim. I was more interested in the cold than the exercise, so once the water was above my knees I knelt down to get my torso wet, and spent a few minutes enjoying the sensation of waves breaking over my shoulders.

Getting dry and dressed without flashing to the passing public was a challenge, but thankfully I was successful!

We arrived at Kinsale, and really struggled to find anywhere to park. It was rammed with cars and people! We drove through the town and parked in a side street. By the time we’d walked the few minutes back to the harbour area the traffic had all but disappeared and the number of people had definitely decreased. Strange. We found a smoothie shop, and each had a healthy drink. We managed to find Sherri again, and drove the short distance to Charles Fort on the hill overlooking the town. We had a look at the outside and the entrance, but neither of us were really that interested in paying the entrance fee, so we turned around and went back to the car. As Susan said, ‘We came, we saw, we left. Meh!’

The journey to our next abode was a long one, taking about 2 1/2 hours straight drive. Susan took the wheel for the motorway part, then I took over for the smaller roads. There’s a lot of hay cutting and harvesting going on, and that means lots of large farm machinery on the country roads; while I’m used to driving on narrow roads through the English countryside, and it doesn’t phase me, Susan, who is driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road for her finds it quite distressing.

Part of the journey was through Co. Tipperary, and it certainly had been a long way to get there as we hit 2000km of driving on this trip shortly after we entered the county!

Eventually the sat nav brought us to a large metal gate onto a long drive leading up to quite an imposing house. Were we at the correct place? Our instructions were to phone an Irish mobile number and the gate would open. We did, and it didn’t. We did again and it still didn’t open. We put the address back into the sat nav, and it showed us we were 14 minutes from where we should be. So off we went, just to end up about 14 minutes later in front of exactly the same gates. We phoned again. The gates stayed shut.

We noticed a button on the gatepost, so pushed it and it rang. After a few minutes Collette, our host for tonight, spoke to us. The gate only works with Irish mobile phones, not Canadian or UK. She’d left a zapper for us in the postbox, and sorry, she’d forgotten to message Susan to let her know. Finally, we got in through the gate and arrived in our cottage. It’s one of 2 old lodges, well appointed and decorated, but nothing in the fridge, not even a pint of milk! We had brought some food for breakfast with us, but had to go out through the gates again to the village a few km down the road to buy something for supper, and some milk.

We were greeted on our return by 3 very friendly dogs who would have loved to join us for supper, and we had to be very firm to stop them getting into Sherri. They’re not my little Blackie though!

Sadly, by now the sun had disappeared behind some clouds, and the temperature was definitely dropping again. Frustrating when there’s a heat wave in the UK, and the temperature in Cambridge, Ontario is 24 degrees.

We fed ourselves very well on Irish sirloin steak, Irish baby potatoes, peas and tomato. Yummy!

Annoyingly the smoke detector was complaining its battery was low on power by beeping every few minutes. Collette promised to get someone to come and stop the beeping, although it wouldn’t be until after 20:30. It was after 21:30 when he did arrive, but thankfully the beeping was stopped.

Today was around 11000 steps and 7km.

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