This next set of posts on the blog are going to be a dump of my favourite pictures from our holiday to both sides of Ireland in August 2010. We went for a week in Ballybunion (County Kerry) and then a week in Enniscorthy (County Wexford). This is a kind-of photo journal of the holiday, so lots of various pictures and some waffling too :)
 |
| Harry - Excited before we left, he wrote "Holiday Ireland - Yahoo!" on his hand! |
Day 1 - Friday/Saturday - Travelling
So, to start with - the trip over. We left on Friday evening at about 2000, to catch a ferry at 0245 in Fishguard. Armed with Red Bull, we managed to get as far as the Severn Bridge without a hitch! Then the matrix signs informed us the M4 was closed for 4 junctions, we totally fluked a route around and then I sleepily drove on to Fishguard. The ferry left on time, and we tried to sleep on seats which I am sure are designed to stop you sleeping on them. The shot below shows my somewhat sleepy son and daughter at about 0600, just before getting to Ireland (and those nasty seats!):
 |
| Barely awake on the Ferry |
Once off the ferry, it was a short drive to County Kerry. Or rather it wasn't - it was 235km, took us 10 hours after leaving the ferry (with several stops including an hours sleep for me in the car). We stopped in Limerick to have some late lunch:
 |
| Smiling in Limerick - nearly there! |
After leaving Limerick, we stopped in Tarbert, called the guy we were renting the house from and arranged to meet in Asdee to pick up the keys. All was fine, and he showed us to the house:
 |
| View behind the house - I like wind turbines! |
The picture above is NOT the house - it's the view from one side. It was a stunning location - nearest neighbours were a good 500 metres away, we were surrounded by fields (one of which had cows in), and on just enough of a hill to have a view down to the Shannon and over to County Claire:
 |
| View from the front garden |
I took a panoramic shot of the view including the house on the last day, so that'll be in a later blog post (I'll put a link here if I remember). The house was lovely - a converted school building with an extension added. Several of the walls were stone inside (all stone outside), with wooden floors and lots of bright wood around the lounge area. Oz was very pleased with it all (and the thought of finally getting something to eat I think!):
 |
| Lovely Jubbly! |
On the first evening, just before getting an early night (I'd had about 2-3 hours of bad sleep in a about 34 hours, and driven 400 odd miles), we went for a walk. We didn't get far, but we did meet a friendly local dog who came all the way back to the house with us - a regular visitor I think as he knew exactly where he was going:
 |
| Dog. We called it Zac for a while, until we found the real Zac. |
Day 2 - Sunday - Relaxing
We had a lazy day on Sunday - went to the local shop to stock up and then went to the beach. It was a lovely beach, and the great thing in Ireland is that you can just drive down on to a lot of the beaches. The tide was a long way out, and we found lots of what we assumed were Jelly Fish - feel free to correct me if that's wrong, but they were lumps of jelly on the sand (see the pics below)
 |
| Harry and his shell with eyes |
 |
| The view back towards the house - with the wind turbines |
 |
| We assumed these were Jelly Fish - there were loads of them on the sand at low tide |
 |
| Oz was having fun on the beach as usual |
 |
| Splashing in the water |
 |
| And there was plenty of space to play - no-one else about really! |
Back at the house, the kids had a muck around on the land:
 |
| Running About |
 |
| Oz's first roly-poly |
 |
| By the Big Red Door |
Day 3 - Monday - The Dingle Peninsula
The Dingle Peninsula is one of Ireland's treasures - a mountainous land mass projecting into the Atlantic. We were about an hour or so from the edge of this, so on Monday we drove down to spend the day taking in the sights. The journey involved driving to Tralee (which has a nice working windmill on the water), and then onto the peninsula. We stopped near Cloghane to stretch legs and take in the first views:
 |
| Searching the Shells, Near Cloghane |
 |
| The Brandons from Near Cloghane |
Crossing the Dingle Peninsula from North to South involves going over the Brandon Mountains, and we chose the relatively narrow road that led through the Connor Pass, giving spectacular views both to the North and South sides:
 |
| View North from the Connor Pass |
 |
| View South from the Connor Pass |
Then on to Dingle town itself and to the South-West tip of the peninsula, where you could look back along the South side:
 |
| Near Kilvickadownig |
From here, you could see the two Skellig Islands in the distance - they are famous for their Puffin and Gannet population, and an early Christian monastery which is a UNESCO World Heritage site:
 |
| The Skellig Islands |
Further on round Slea Head we stopped at various points to admire the view (and take some pictures) - this one below is of a beautiful looking secluded beach in the distance, and I've attached the Google Map control to show where it is:
 |
| Slea Head Beach |
The beach above is actually the one on the map below:
From here, we headed back across the Peninsula, towards Ventry over a Sat Nav directed route through some very windy single track roads. Always fun to follow the Sat Nav :)
 |
| Near to Ventry |
And we finally got to our final destination on the peninsula - Inch Beach. This is an amazing stretch of beach which juts out into the water. The tide was out, and the kids got into their wet suits and grabbed body boards for a mess around that was massively more impressive than most of the areas in the UK.
 |
| Inch Beach |
And what's more, you can park (for free) on the sand near the water!
 |
| Parking on Inch Beach |
I went out for a drive in the evening to investigate the area a bit more thoroughly for photos. While I didn't really take any significant landscape shots, I did get a shot of some friendly looking cows, which it turns out were not so friendly as I'll explain later on...
 |
| Scary Cows (more to follow) |
Other Parts
This post is part of a series about our holiday to Ireland:
No comments:
Post a Comment