Ireland - Dublin to Riverstick

Hello again, this time from Ireland. I was very tired after the walk and needed a few days to recover before taking to the blog again.

We left Mike and Diane from The Old Vicarage in Llangurig, the perfect hosts who couldn't do enough for us, even cooked us a meal on our final night. A taxi picked us up and drove us to Birmingham Airport where we had to fly on an international flight to Dublin because England is no longer in the EU. Then another taxi took us to our hotel in Dublin. We did Dublin in a few hours before bed. It's daylight here until about 10:30 so plenty of time to wander. Allan and Graham collected our hire car early on Wednesday morning, we packed all our gear into it and off we went on the next leg of our adventure.

Our first stop was Cashel to visit the Castle on the Rock of Cashel. This impressive site has been both military and ecclesestical and all have abandoned it because it's such a windy, dreary place, especially in winter. It really amazes me how these structures were built all those years ago and so much is still standing today.

Our first ever attempt at a selfie.. maybe we'll stick to handing the camera to someone else to take the photo!

Lunch and a wander around Cashel before driving to Cork. We got stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway so did our best to find another way to Veronica's self contained apartments 'Curragh Farm Cottages'.

Our bedroom!

Mum and her new foal. Just gorgeous.... We did enjoy meeting Veronica, our host. I've never met a farmer dressed in stilettos before. She explained things to us but we had great difficulty understanding her. She had a very broad accent and talked very fast. Veronica didn't provide any written instructions for anything so cooking breakfast the first morning was time consuming! But she provided a lovely home for us for two nights and her advice about the area was very helpful.

Kinsale was Veronica's recommendation for dinner. She said we wouldn't need to book but this lovely village sitting on the bay was very busy, but Dino's fish and chips hit the spot. Fishy Fishy was Veronica's choice but they were booked. All we could do was enjoy their quotes.

Allan got talking to a local man and couldn't get away.

Kinsale has some quaint streets and houses. Overall a very lovely little village. The next day we headed for Cork to visit the famous English Market that the Queen opened some years ago. Lonely Planet said it was unmissable but we were disappointed, South Melbourne Market beats it hands down. So we happily left Cork and drove to Cobh (pronounced Cove). What a delight. This small town with a most magnificent church which towers over the pretty houses and the bay.

The bishop lives in one of these houses on the Royal Crescent

A lovely lunch time stop with a very welcoming staff and setting.

Allan loved the names of these two boats, 'Sheila' and 'Turbo Bank'.

Cobh is another quaint town and the locals are very friendly which makes the town all the more pleasant.

The view of Riverstick from our bedroom window in the morning and at 9:30pm.

Farewell to Curragh Farm Cottages. What a great place to stay.