Morning All
This was the view from the van this morning. Considering we’re right next to a major waterway (we did hear a big ferry rumble out of the harbour at about 10:30 last night), with the train track right behind us (you do hear the occasional train, but it’s not that bad), it was a quiet night.
Sue got talking to another local this morning on the way to the bins. They seem to be queuing up to talk to her. Word must have got out there’s a receptive ear in town and they all want to talk to her… there’s a queue!
Anyway, Sue got talking to a local vanner in the Cobh car park (she was going to do the recycling but took 20 minutes instead of two). He said the local council had only recently increased the number of van bays there from 15 to 30. There had been bank holidays when 40 vans were parked all over the place. He also said that the cruise companies had wanted the local authorities to close the pathway from the campervan stop and car park through to Cobh. They said it was a security problem… didn’t want the Americans having to put up with us lot gawping at them, I guess. The locals objected (seeing as shutting the path would be seriously kowtowing to Mr Big and cause considerable inconvenience around the station), and the path was kept open — even if G4S has to police the dock as the big ships come and go.
The local also gave us a load of suggested places to visit… just like everyone else we’ve met!
Another Ferry
The first destination today was Kinsale. This is the start of the Wild Atlantic Way and is also supposed to be a picturesque fishing port.
The first job of the day was a quick stop at an Aldi for a couple of days’ worth of provisions. We were surprised to see GF stuff in there… You don’t see that in UK Aldi stores.
None of the supermarket car parks seem to cater much for oversized campervans. The VW California used to fit in a regular bay. Not so much with this Fiat Ducato-based van, especially with the bikes on the back. So we tucked it into a corner parking bay as best we could, taking up two bays, and relied on the fact that the car park didn’t seem to be very busy on a Sunday morning.
Then on the road again.
We were supposed to take the coastal route to Kinsale, but the satnav insisted on taking us the quickest way cross-country. When we finally realised, it was too late to do much other than go back, and we didn’t want to do that, so we headed straight to Kinsale.
Kinsale
Everyone had warned us… Kinsale would be busy. And it sort of wasn’t, at least not to start with. Sure, if we’d tried to take our overly long van into the town centre, then we’d have struggled to find a parking spot.
But we’d read that there was a free car park (they’re actually almost always free) just as we came into town, behind the fire station. So we ducked in there (the car park, not the fire station) and took a long bay that could have been for either coaches or campervans. Cars were also parked in the long bays, so we took a punt and parked up.
It was a five-minute walk to the harbour-front. And everywhere was open. Not too surprising, seeing as it was about 11. But it was a Sunday. We’d assumed Sunday opening might be restricted, but apparently not — everything was open, pretty much like a regular weekday. Some of the smaller shops might have opened a bit later, but by the time we came back through the town in the afternoon, it seemed just about everywhere was open.
We walked along the harbour-front looking for a coffee and finally found one by the harbourmaster on the fat side of the harbout. We say out front on some stools at a thin bar arrangement. The coffee was OK, and there was a much-needed clean loo to use.
Sue got talking to a local — the queue was now extending back into the town to talk to her!
He told us about the two forts on either side of the harbour, and we had a quick chat about the cruise ship that was coming in the next day, Monday. He couldn’t believe, like us, that a berth was $38,000 for a 12-day cruise! The ship only held 400 passengers (small in these terms), but it was obviously very exclusive.
We decided to head to the fort closer to where we were, on the south side of the harbour… James Fort. We could have driven to the other fort, but I think we lucked out choosing this one.
James Fort
It was quite a schlep from the town to the promontory where the derelict James Fort stands. Getting on for 4 km.
Anyway, once we got there, we were surprised to see beach signs. The landscape looked like there were just fields around us, but when we poked our heads around the beach signpost, there was indeed a beach. We should have guessed from the lack of free parking around the beach area that people weren’t here for the fort; they were here for the beach.
Nice sandy beach and some rocks for a banana (Sue) and an M&S GF chicken and bacon sandwich… surplus to yesterday’s requirements in Cork (John) — one of my faves. It’s quite bizarre to find a) M&S in Ireland and b) some of the best GF prepacked sarnies you can find (IMHO).
But back to the fort.
In 1601, a Spanish force landed at Kinsale to support the Irish rebels. English forces defeated their Irish and Spanish opponents at the Battle of Kinsale, but the landing exposed the harbour’s vulnerability. Work on James Fort began in 1602; it was completed in 1604 and named after James I.
The fort is in ruins now, but it does at least give views out over the estuary to the better-preserved Charles Fort on the other side.
On the way back to the van from James Fort, things were getting busier in Kinsale. It’s not Newquay or St Ives in August busy, but it was bustling. It also doesn’t have the chip-shop smell of Newquay or the pasty aroma of St Ives. So it was like St Ives but less busy and less smelly. Not terrible, but not our cup of tea either. OK to walk through, but not actually stay. There were plenty of other people who thought otherwise.
Just before the van car park, we popped into SuperValu — like I said the other day, it’s not at all what you expect. It’s actually quite upmarket, IMHO.
Wild Atlantic Way
It was then time to head off.
Kinsale is the start of the Wild Atlantic Way. We took the N71 and then the R597 to Leap, and while the R597 was only just wide enough for us (and the 4x4s coming the other way), the views were stunning…
At one point, we ducked off the not-so-main route we were on and went down a single-track road to the Late Bronze Age Drombeg Stone Circle. The stone circle dates to roughly 1124–794 BC. It’s a fairly small example, but the nearby hut site and cooking pit are also interesting: stones heated in a hearth were used to boil water in the pit.
There were also a number of people lying on the ground having their chakras aligned.
Top of the Rock Pod Páirc and Walking Centre
Our home for the next two nights is Top of the Rock Pod Páirc and Walking Centre. It’s in two of the three Ireland guidebooks we have.
We weren’t particularly aiming for this place. But when Sue was looking for somewhere for after we’d stayed around Cork, this was the only site that seemed to have any campervan pitches available. We knew we wanted some decent loos, showers and some leckie after four nights off-grid, so we plumped for this place a bit inland.
Little did we know what we were letting ourselves in for.
You never really know what a site is going to be like until you arrive.
This one’s a menagerie. We counted donkeys (I hope they don’t kick off at dawn like so many seem to on campsites), goats, sheep, chickens, geese, rabbits and guinea pigs.
Feeding time is at 6:30 p.m.
David, the co-owner, was super friendly, and we have no reason to think his wife is any different.
We should have brought some children; we’re the only ones here who aren’t a family!
We had a good chat with a mum who was already parked behind us in a self-build van and had brought her three kids and her sister for a night away. It’s amazing what people think of for a van. They had double king-size pull-out bunk beds and three seatbelted car seats bolted to the floor for the kids to travel in the back.
The site has a mixture of tent pitches, three campervan pitches and around 15 “pods”, with fantastic views back over the hills. We’re here all day tomorrow, sorting the van out (repacking everything to try and improve the system), doing our washing and—in my case—having a rest day. We did 22,000 steps yesterday around Cork, and then we had a “quiet” day of 17,000 steps today… I need a rest day!
J
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