Cork and back to Dublin

 My friend Paul reconnected me with his sister Heather, who lives in Cork and had stayed with me in Shanghai back in 2008. She was super keen to show me her part of the world. So on Wednesday we arranged to meet in the carpark of B&Q (a smaller version of Bunnings) we went into the city centre and had a lovely lunch at the Nano Nagle Centre. It is a lovely oasis in the middle of the city. After lunch we wandered around the gardens, cemetery and museum. I was pleased to see the Tasmanian Presentation Sisters schools were the highlighted schools for Australia in the museum. 

Then we headed to Blarney Castle as this used to be Heather's favourite place to walk her dog until they banned dogs a few years ago. We had a lovely wander around the gardens and watched some people kiss the Blarney Stone. I used my dodgy knee as a good excuse not to climb all those steps or lean over backwards. 

Heather thinks this crochet might have been from a yarn project at the castle she was involved in a decade ago.

Blarney House, still lived in but on a very part time because.

On Thursday morning Heather met me at my BnB in Midleton and as it was raining we went to the lovely Hedgehog Fibres. Whilst Heather had a custom fibre bag made up, I browsed their selection and made an unplanned purchase of some unusual alpaca and silk lace weight boucle yarn that they had a sample cardigan knitted in. 

We then headed to the island of Fota, visiting Fota House for lunch and a wander around their arboretum and gardens. Then we headed to the next island, Cobh. Heather and Paul's family had lived there for many years, so there were lots of sights to show me such as their old house, school and the cathedral. Inside the cathedral looked very old but was actually only finished in 1919.

A very informative toilet door.

Apparently people are being encouraged to build insect homes in their gardens.

Paul's childhood home, very different to most Irish houses I saw.

Cobh Cathedral

Cobh is built on the side of a hill, I couldn't believe how steep it was in places. 

We finished up down on the harbour, visiting the emigration museum. Most ships final port in Ireland was Cobh, including the Titanic. Australia got many mentions throughout the museum, with Tasmania even getting a few. After a lovely dinner of local fish it was time to say our goodbyes. 

Cork gin seemed an appropriate beverage with my dinner. 

Today my goal was to stop in Waterford on my way back to Dublin to check out the Edmund Rice Centre as several friends had recommended it. Unfortunately on arrival I discovered it was mostly closed for renovations. I did get to visit the chapel, I'm not sure Edmund Rice would approve of his coffin being the focal point of a chapel? 

Some quick online research led me to discover one of the oldest woollen Mills in Ireland was only 40 minutes north and not that far off my route back to Dublin. It turned out to be a delightful visit and probably my favourite woollen mill I visited. Had a lovely talk with one of the staff about the realities of the Irish woollen industry, they are the only mill that uses 100% Irish wool. They source their wool from 8 farms near Galway, the vast majority of sheep in Ireland being for meat these days. 

So 2000km and 11 days later I'm back in Dublin, ready to fly to Iceland tomorrow morning. 

Ring of Kerry and Dingle Peninsula

 A couple of days of absolutely stunning scenery. The best scenes were where you can't stop and photos really don't show the depth to the view.

Ladies View, Ring of Kerry

Torc Falls, there were a couple of spare parking spots this afternoon.

Fuchsias were growing wild as hedges in the south of the Ring of Kerry and Dingle Peninsula.

Dingle Peninsula, I was intrigued to go there as the name is totally different in English to Gaelic. Very different scenery, lovely beaches and farming land.

Looking at the Dingle Peninsula from the south of the Ring of Kerry.

Leaving at 7.15am this morning was so worth it, I enjoyed almost two hours of hardly any traffic and being able to stop at every view point with ease.

Yesterday I took at route to Kerry Woollen Mills that turned out to be through the Kerry Highlands, on a very narrow and windy road. Had to wait for some sheep to get off the road at one point as they clearly weren't used to cars, seemed to be more of a hikers route. 

Buses travel anti clockwise around the Ring of Kerry, as it isn't wide enough for two buses to pass each other. I drove it clockwise, so I wouldn't get stuck behind the tour buses and just had to stop to let them go by. I timed it well today and only met a couple, Sunday at one point, I met seven one after the other.

Cromwell's Bridge in Kenmare, very, very steep.

Every village I drive through has at least one shop with one of these out the front. It's just regular soft serve but if you get a 99 cone it has half a Flake in it. Many of the specialist ice cream shops seem to also sell coffee, perhaps because of the weather? 

Every tourist town has two or three jumpers selling Aran jumpers, those this design seems confused with Fair Isle jumpers? 

My €2/A$3 bargain yarn from Kerry Mills. Definitely much cheaper than the other wool I've purchased so far. 

A Barn Conversion and Killarney National Park

I planned to stop at a waterfall but there were no parking spots, so instead I went for a lovely walk to where the three lakes of Killarney National Park meet. The traffic on a Sunday afternoon was crazy, so many coaches coming towards me and then a pack of cyclists.

Fans of Escape to the Country will understand my desire to stay in a barn conversion during my holiday. It turns out it's much newer and nicer than I expected. 

The Aran Islands and the Cliffs of Moher

 On Saturday I ventured to the largest of the Aran Islands, Inis Mor (14km by 4km, or 9 miles by 2.5 miles). The ferry headed out in misty rain but thankfully by the time we got to Inis Mor it was sunny and it stayed that way all day. My second tshirt day this trip.

Famous for the jumper/sweater design that originated on these islands (if you've seen my Dad in a hand knitted jumper, it's that design). There are even tourist shops in central Dublin dedicated selling them, though mostly machine made ones. The hand knitted jumpers are at least €300 (A$450) whilst the machine made version is €100.

I expected to see lots of sheep and fishermen on the island, as the jumpers were traditionally knitted by the fishermen to wear on their boats. I saw no sheep and only a couple of fishing boats but there were so many stone fences, apparently 10,000 miles of them. The whole island was so rocky, making it look greyer in photos than it was in real life. The little paddocks that were created using the stones centuries ago are no longer suitable for sheep farming. Though I did finally manage to find some knitting wool, that was supposedly processed on one of the islands and contained a tiny bit of Aran Islands wool.

Sheep farming is especially not popular when there is much more money to be made from the thousands of tourists who visit each day in the summer. Many of whom get on a bicycle for the first time in years and attempt to ride around the island, I felt so sorry for my hop on, hop off mini bus driver who had so many near misses, as they went on the wrong side of the road. It is a very unique island and my photos don't do it justice. 

On the return trip to the mainland I had added on a cruise to the second most popular tourist attraction in Ireland, the Cliffs of Moher aka The Cliffs of Insanity, if you're a Princess Bride fan. They were pretty impressive but I think Tasmania has more spectacular cliffs.