Sheep, Goats, and Mizen

The forecast has only one day with possible sunshine listed for the entire coming week. It is Saturday and we’d better use it. Although the miles are short… the drive is LONG. Just like Wales. (only you can see more over the hedges here) We drove down the Mizen peninsula to Mizen Head Lighthouse and a stunning view of coast I had seen in pictures and wanted to see in person. It did not disappoint other than we had to confront a bunch of stairs. (we know what that means)

Worth every creak and groan. The wind was whipping like I haven’t experienced since an Idaho winter, but again.. worth the view. 

Then on to drive the next door Sheeps head Peninsula, a portion of which is called the goats way. Since pull outs and viewpoints are rare everywhere here, poor R gets stuck with being the sidekick photographer, often while the car is still moving as slowly as I can get away with. Many of the shots we have are from her valiant efforts, and I am grateful. This day was particularly heavy with the need for her services, as time and pullouts were both scarce. The first 5 pictures here are all from Berts efforts either out the window while driving, or paused just long enough to snap out the window.

Lovely Librarian

“Here Comes the Rain Again” …it IS Ireland and it seems the national anthem might appropriately feature Annie Lenox.. but the Irish have a proud musical tradition of their own.. so maybe not.  We took a “sort of down” rain day and explored a gift shop and gallery in Adrigoel that featured work from artists all over Ireland. In process we met the owners, Irish Jerry, his french wife Camille and there charming but indulged bilingual daughter Amelie.  

While admiring the folk music playing in the shop I discovered not only was the duo performing that night in a pub in Castletownbere..(where we are staying) but that Jerry was one of the two in the duo.  Jerry also recommended we speak to Dorothy at the local library who might be able to help us with internet access. (after the debacle with Paul and the magic device)

Off to Castletownbere where Dorothy is a kind fount of generosity. We can use the internet at the library.. but for a fee and joining the library. (which she seems concerned we won’t appreciate)  The fee is 2.50 EU each.  

Ahem!!  After the money we have flushed down the magic device I think we can handle 5 EU!!

Library hours are limited as Dorothy is the lone volunteer librarian… but she kindly informs us that the wireless is on 24/7 and can be accessed fairly well when parked in the town square.

I have a bit of a crush on Dorothy. 

We DID brave the local pub McCarthye’s at 10pm that night to listen to Jerry and his pal. Other than the awkward smokers gauntlet we had to walk going in and out it wasn’t too painful. Oh yes… and since the only seating available seemed to be by the bathroom door it was slightly awkward seating. The duo was very good, but it seemed only two or three others in the pub were listening besides R and me. (which made me sad) 

The most interesting part of the day was seeing Gary, the magic device weasel, come in with what appeared to be a date. Since I hadn’t gone with R that morning to give him an earful I had no clue what exactly went down.  I do know it would be difficult to find a tinier pub, and weasel Gary and his date were sitting just inches away from us… the date looked over quite often, but he managed to avoid any eye contact the entire night. 

Beara is Best

Finally…fresh FISH!! Thursday is market day in Castletownbere (or fair day as they call it here).

The fish guy confirmed that indeed he does not come across many Americans who are “self catering” their holidays, and kindly walked us through some fish varieties we had never heard of. With R beaming and carrying 30 euros worth of various fish we headed back for a breakfast of a fish we don’t remember the name of, but whose flavor was amazing. A mix of Halibut and trout together. (We’ve been gorging on fish ever since)

Then off to drive more of the Ring of Beara. Turns out the Ring of Kerry is the most touristed.. Dingle second most visited…and the ring of Beara is most isolated and least visited. This does not mean least scenic at all, but it does mean quiet roads and in some cases the main road is a two lane track with a strip of grass in the middle, cliff drop off on one side rock wall on the other. Luckily we passed no one on this remote portion. 

HIghlights:  

Eyries, a “charming irish village” as the local promotion touts.

 Kilcatherine church overlooking the ocean and painfully melancholy with it’s graves inside the derelict structure. 

The Ardroom stone circle and the Uragh stone circle… both of which required extensive effort to find, but again.. we had them all to ourselves. 

And the stunner of the day (even though the weather was socking in) the stunning Healy Pass. A hairpin turn drive through purple and pink stone mountains with giant deep green valleys below and a postcard view at every glimpse. We spent more time getting in and out of the car than we did actually driving the 7 miles of the pass. 

On the east side of the Healy pass as we neared the barren and secluded bottom a man came out on the road and flagged us. He came from a side road that had a car and tractor parked on them and I thought he must have had some car trouble or something.  The MINUTE I rolled down the window and he leaned forward I knew he didn’t have any car trouble. The stench of him is something I have never encountered.. and I live in a city of street people. Human and animal combined.. but something far more than that.

He was covered in some sort of animal hair, missing most of his teeth save two brown specimens on the ride side front…. age was completely hard to guess. (somewhere between 45 and 100) With a toxic toothless grin he leaned into my half rolled window and began asking us where we were from.  I replied Arizona and quickly added that we had an appointment to keep with our landlady. (which was true… we had a broken toilet seat and shower door in our rental house)  

He followed this with a barrage of questions R kept kindly answering. I kept turning toward her sending desperate eye signals of horror and disgust. Could she not smell him? Could she not tell he was unbalanced? Is she just light years kinder than me?  (probably)

Were we single, married? How many children? How many grandchildren? Why was I single? Were we catholic?  Seriously… I was close to wretching from the smell. 

Several times I interjected that we had an appointment.. each time he reached his hand in to shake ours and immediately followed this with questions as we were shaking it.  Finally, in one last “we have to meet our landlady” I actually let the car move forward and we managed to break away.  I kid you not.. the car was filled with his odor and we had to keep the windows open for some time. As soon as possible I pulled over and we used baby wipes to decontaminate the hands he shook.  

Poor soul. Does he live with animals and hide out out the Healy pass catching conversations with whoever will stop?  We will be driving the pass again and I am curious if we’ll see him.  If we do……I probably won’t stop. 

Weasels... or I suppose here a stoat

Out of Credit?  Out of Credit?  But we just started using the magic wireless modem/router hotspot last night, and Gary, the slightly grumpy ginger at the phone store assured us that the pricey 4G would last us two weeks. I even asked him if it would be a problem synching my Mac devices with lots of pictures and he assured me “no problems”.  First let me say… Ginger Gary is a weasel.  I realized the next morning when we had the “out of credit” message that the photo synching must use a ton of data  (I KNOW Aspen… I should know)  But really… I was specific.. I asked Jerry if it worked that way. (Because I naively thought synching worked differently than downloading or streaming) and Gary l blithely said “yah yah.. no problems, it’ll be fine”  

No apologies when we came in the next day, and I didn’t expect any as he isn’t the sort. We grumpily bought 2G and were only going to text, email and browse… should be fine. 

12 hours later…. “out of credit”.  Seriously?  I made sure none of my devices were even ON at the same time and had synching turned off anyway. I sent a handful of texts, some emails and we looked at maybe 5 webpages. “Out of Credit” my eye!  Weasel. 

R wants to give Gary an earful. I know it will be fruitless, other than to possibly vent a little and take a part of our day. So… I write this now with little idea of when it will actually be posted. Maybe the middle of October when I’m back in the states?

Watch out Gary… you don’t want to be on the bad side of R… he has no idea what is coming. 

Dursey Day

Ok… keep it quick. 

Sleep in (of course) wash clothes, drive to Castletownbere (closest town) to check out internet possibilities. Get lost.. (of course).  “Top off” time on magic wireless modem/router hotspot for house (hurrah!!) and begin first REAL drive to see Ireland. 

See Pictures below... Lovely!!  It is straight out of a stereotyping movie. Ireland as Hollywood would portray it. Green landscape, … abandoned stone structures, sheep… bright colored houses.. barren rocks. 

Loved. it. 

Yes.. .narrow roads… but NOT Wales narrow. I’m good. 

The pictures start with the view from our house this morning... and end with the view at night. 

I KNOW!!

More soon. 

Thats B taking the shot.

Signs for Crazy Lady (and me)

Getting there

“Ya left dis at da front desk miss.” said the polite flight attendant just before take off. It was the black zippered folder holding all of our reservation information for flights and car rentals. (not to mention all receipts thus far)  OUCH!!   It would have been ugly without that thing. Not sure if the efforts to get it back to me were from the airline or the handful of people who run the very small Cardiff international airport. Either way we were grateful, and that incident is good evidence of the brainpower the two of us were using this day. 

Up at 3:30 am for the 2.5 hour (longer if you miss your exit on the roundabouts) drive to Cardiff for our flight to Dublin. Car return. Done. Check into flight. Done.  Board plane. Yes.  etc. Etc. 

In Dublin R waited patiently while I negotiated an upgrade to our car. We plugged in Betsy the wayward SATNAV and off we went. Things went fairly well until Cork where we hoped to stop at a Tesco for food shopping. First Betsy began telling us to turn left when her map directions were pointing right, then the painful drive to find this Tesco ensued. Some feathers were ruffled but not removed and we eventually found ourselves in a Cork sort of shopping mall. 

If ONLY one of us had taken our camera in.  It was a cultural awakening. A whole level set aside for a “toilet” sort of complex complete with a “toilet lift”  (elevator) since the whole compound was up several flights of stairs. A lingerie store right next to a butcher cutting up a side of lamb in his store. There were actually two butchers in this mall thrown in among shoe and clothing stores, phone shops, pharmacy etc. Anyway…food purchased and back on the road to the Beara peninsula where our first house is in Ireland.  

Yes so far the non expressway roads are narrow compared to those in the U.S… but compared to Wales… bring it on! I could fly down these “narrow” curves after my Cymru training. So far what I’ve seen of Ireland looks much like Wales if Wales had been ironed out just a bit. Longer vistas.  Long views over the hedges.. and even many breaks in the hedges. Lovely. 

After 15hrs in transit we finally made it to our charming house. The view was lovely. I devoured half a chicken, showered and currently am without plans. 

Arrived to our house "Tir Na Nog" greeted with this view.  Ahhhhh

The Honor System.

Don’t trust R and C on the honor system.  Last day in Wales before flying out, 9 pounds to spend, (don’t want to be stuck with money we can’t use)  bags to pack, a house to clean, food to organize, gas the car, mail postcards etc, etc.  As many of you know R is a whirlwind at the house cleaning and food stuff and was ready to set off long before I had completely woken up. 

In the end we managed a last internet trip to the library and settled on trying to use our 9 pounds to try to get into a local home garden we had both found online called Dyffryn Fernant Gardens. I say try because the signs read 5 pounds per person. Although I’m pretty bad at math, even I knew that didn’t add up to our cash flow. 

A quick drive down the now commonplace harrowing and narrow hedge lined hairpin turn roads and we found the little spot buried in between cow fields.  An empty little shed was our entry point with an “honor system” box to put your entry fee in. There were even several one pound coins in a bowl should we need change. Yeah… we stiffed them a pound, and I won’t lie.. I don’t feel a bit guilty.  I should though, because the garden was glorious!  R was in heaven. 

Small, packed, and even just before October, quite stunning. It was clear there is an artist (or several) at work in this property. Hard for pictures to capture the wonderful views from so many angles, the riot of colors and textures that were mixed.  

We spent a good 40 minutes just sitting in a favorite “room” as curious robins flitted close by to check us out. A lovely and calming last afternoon. Then.. back to the cleaning and packing.