Aug 04, 2012

Snippets / Memories / Photos of the day:

• Listening to pouring rain on the roof for most of the night.
• Water sheeting across roads this morning and much rain.
• More lovely road verges full of flowers with more rain and so no photo (and we seem to have moved on from fuchsia country…damn!)
• A short sharp shower of hail to remind us that things could still get worse!
• ….and more and more rain in short sharp bursts but overall we had fine weather to make our visits so that was good.



Some of the remains of Ardfert Cathedral, St Brendan’s territory.

• Incredible sweeping views from up the mountain down across manicured farmland to the shore.
• Dairy cows, dairy cows and more dairy cows.
• Mud, mud and more mud on the road….compliments of those cows and heavy rain.
• Dirty filthy bikes, very sad. We left them uncovered last night to get a bit of the crud washed off (which worked to a superficial level) but it has been replaced again today.
• Peat briquettes at all the servos (not unlike our brown coal briquettes at home).



Carrigafoyle Castle. Apparently any ancient Castles surviving here were in the hands of supporters of Queen Elizabeth I during various rebellious times (or were seized with little damage and handed on to supporters). This one wasn’t. An apparently impregnable castle had the side blown out of it. It is still impressive (5 storeys high) and many of the tower rooms intact.

• Surprising enjoyment of the Glin & Foynes Flying Boat Museum…as well as more great soup for lunch.
• Brilliant and surprising burst of sunlight and clear skies.
• Tiny lanes like secret paths.
• The quizzical looks of the locals when they see us getting all the wet weather gear on at servos and the likes. Looks like they think ‘with all that good weather out there what are they doing here in this?’
• Spectacular views between the mountains of the peninsulas up to the woolly grey clouds overhead.



Part of the full scale model of one of the Flying Boats which crossed the Atlantic Ocean to America and back. Held a surprising number of passengers. A heady era lasting 2 years short of 20. Just shows being on the cutting edge of development / technology can have dramatic consequence and life takes over…in this instance WWII and development of different flying craft.

Bits and Bobs:

The universality of farming…in Australia Farmer Jones…here Farmer Murphy I guess drags heaps of mud out onto the road and doesn’t make any effort to clean it up. Interesting…if we do that in our Industry (trucks) we have to clean it up or get hefty fines. Guess there must be more farmers than Truckies in Parliament here as well as at home.

Last nights’ Accommodation:

Dingle Bay Hotel, Ireland

A delightful find in a quaint fishing village. The outside looked cheerful…and the inside has been nicely refurbished though an eye to detail was slightly off on some of the fittings, or it might be handyman maintenance and things becoming loose. Disappointing. Our room is large and restful. Staff are friendly and helpful (many thanks for organising our laundry) and the food was great but hated the rubber backed sheet on the bed….was sweaty all night and when I raised that on check out I was met by a wall of ‘talk to the hand’…pretty much. Disappointing.



Dingle Bay Hotel