Ireland
From Belfast, we drove South, almost inevitably to Dublin. We have little to show for the fair city, other than a sign from a Diner and a statue of James Larkin with a Spike through his head but the fondest memory is unphotographed, enjoying the sun on the grass in Stephen's Green.
Next, we headed further South, where we stumbled first across traditional peat-cutting for fuel.
Next we found Mondello Park, where we were treated to a personal tour of their car collection:
Later in the afternoon, we pulled over for a nap in the country, with the door open, facing a field. We woke up to find that all the heffers had come over to investigate Andrew's snoring:
Eventually, we hit the coast South of Cork and fell asleep to the sound of the waves washing gently on the beach at Crohane
We then continued round the coast, sleeping most nights with the doors open to the sound of the waves breaking on deserted isolated beaches.
By now, we had roughed it enough and checked into a hotel for a decent freshen up and to charge the batteries on everything. In the morning, we went back to the tower at Dunratty that we had seen just above and spent most of the day exploring the site.
One thing that we didn't understand was why the building opposite had cellars that were clearly designed to flood at every high tide:
Sometimes it can be hard to guess the quality of the road we might be using. This is marked as a road on the map:
By now, we were round the corner to the Atlantic coast. The wind and waves became increasingly more ferocious.
Note the sea here throwing up clouds of spray up, over the top of the cliffs.
The last night in the republic was spent out in the hills, West of Galloway. A Beautiful, peaceful spot, by the lake, miles from anywhere.
We awoke in the middle of the night to be greeted by a sky full of stars. Click on the picture to see just how full of stars the sky was. It is a 30 second exposure, so each star shows as a line because the earth rotated by that much during the 30 seconds. Note how the stars are all different colours. Note that this isn't the whole sky - The picture covers only 24 degrees across the long edge.
We continued cross the mountains on a road that wasn't on the map or sat nav - used only by ourselves and sheep.
When we were waiting for the ferry, I was frustrated that I couldn't get a picture of it. Although the ferry should be visible for miles as it comes down the estuary, they have managed to arrange the terminal so that you can't see it till it is approaching the dock. Undeterred, I put on my steel toe cap boots, high-Vis vest and went to the desk carrying the camera with the big lens. "I would like to obtain authorisation to walk over to the jetty (where it says No Unauthoriesed Access) to take a picture of my ferry coming in". Since I looked the part, they called the Man in Charge. I didn't hear the far end of the conversation, but I had guessed right because the answer to the only question was "He has turned up in High-Vis", and I got my permission. So I went out to the jetty to take my picutres. First with a Tele-converter, from maybe 10 miles away:
But then, it started to chuck it down with rain. It seemed that I wasn't going to get my picture.
But as I was able to take the teleconverter off, the boat emerged from the rain into bright sunlight. The picture is OK, but I could cry for the one that I missed... Just outside this picture, there was a complete arch of a rainbow, neatly framing the entire boat. But I couldn't capture it. So-as to avoid security suspicions, I had gone with only the one lens and no bag. I could have captured the boat framed by the rainbow with a disposable point-and-shoot but with the gear I actually had, it was impossible.
And finally, we were on our way home, leaving Ireland (and it's ever changing weather) behind us.
