Top of the Rock
It was a brisk but unrushed departure from one of the best campsites we’ve stayed at on any trip. It was just a bit quirky and fun to see the kids running around, and the owners were delightful… and really hard-working.
The loos and showers were great, even if we did have to pay another €1 for a shower on top of the rather steep €40 a night. David was also charging €5 per child and the same for adults to have “the tour” in the mornings — we didn’t do a tour.
Loos were a solid 8.5/10.
Baltimore
We got to Baltimore just in time to catch the 10:30 ferry to Sherkin. But… we nearly changed our minds at the last minute and took the Cape Clear and Fastnet ferry trip instead. In the end, we probably chose better, but we may still do Fastnet another day (tomorrow?), from Schull.
We were going to take the bikes to Sherkin… and go for a swim. But the weather was decidedly grey, so we didn’t think we’d do the swim. And we arrived later than we’d hoped, so didn’t have time to suss out the situation and then go back for the bikes too. So no bikes either.
Nobody else was taking bikes, except one kid’s bike.
Sherkin Island
It was a reasonably calm crossing, with a bit of a roll developing as we approached the island. There were probably 20 people on the ferry.
Then, just as we left the harbour, another “derelict church” stood in front of us — the Franciscan friary. That makes the ruined-church count eight now. The friary has an interesting story. It was founded in 1460 by local female chieftain Fineen O’Driscoll. In 1537, the O’Driscolls seized a Portuguese ship carrying wine to Waterford. Waterford retaliated with a five-day attack on Sherkin Island, badly damaging the castle, the friary and probably every other standing structure they could find. The friary was later partly rebuilt, but is now a ruin. Early gang warfare – lookout Jack Sparrow!
From the dock and the friary, we went for a wander.
Coffee at the Crows Gabble
The island’s shop was shut. As was the pub — it didn’t open until 12. The hotel looked promising for a coffee, but we decided to push on and look at the other cafes listed on the map.
The community centre loos were open to the public — basic but clean. A sign in one told you not to put loo paper down the loo, while the other one didn’t. Loo seat, loo paper and water… 5/10.
As we wandered around, we saw half a dozen or so really picturesque beaches. But the light was flat and the clouds were grey… so the camera didn’t click, sorry!
Crows Gabble was a great coffee stop. It seems to be run by a couple at the side of their house. They have a serious coffee machine, but it’s all housed under a gazebo. Great coffee… and the biggest slice of GF banana cake I’d had in a long time (a bit dry, though).
We sat and had our coffee and cake looking over a lagoon with “Free Palestine” laid out in big coloured letters. The lagoon appeared to be tidal, with what looked like a partly natural and partly man-made rocky barrier. The tide clearly came over the rocks at some point and would have created a rapid, but we didn’t get to see that — boo! A foretaste of Lough Hyne later.
Silver Strand
There were a number of lovely beaches on the island (that we got to see). But Silver Strand was probably the most picturesque, with fine white sand and various people taking a plunge.
Then there was a rather run-down cafe opposite the beach, even by Crows Gabble standards. It was shut when we first went past, but open (at least I think that’s what they would have called it) on the way back.
Coffee at Cafe Bruno
And then we sort of came to the end of the island, and Cafe Bruno.
It seemed to be a collection of B&B semi’s, yurts, a communal hall and the cafe. We had borscht and a coffee. We also had a chat with one of the people we’d come over on the ferry with. She was from Nottingham, now living in Ireland, and often came to Sherkin and Cape Clear to camp. She was on some sort of yoga or Pilates retreat in a B&B for the next few days.
There was a rather hilarious incident at the cafe when a seagull landed on the table next to us and proceeded to swallow two large slabs of butter from the remains of someone’s meal — each probably 100 g or so. We didn’t see it, but I suspect the gull was later lying stretched out on a beach with coronary heart failure… not so hilarious for the gull!
Return Trip
There were definitely more people wandering around the island as we walked back to get the 2:15 return ferry to Baltimore.
The trip back to the mainland had the added interest of a family car being carried on the ferry. It sounded like the family used to live locally but were visiting for a while. Apparently, it is €70 to take a car across on the ferry.
One other amusing aspect of the island was how run-down all the cars were. They were all proper bangers, often with bits hanging off them and sounding like they were about to conk out. There were numerous cars that looked like they’d stopped one day and had just been left where they stood to rot. Clearly, cars came to Sherkin to die.
Then there was the parcel-delivery woman and her child. We saw her a number of times delivering parcels, often just wandering in through people’s front doors and dropping them off. She was doing the rounds in a not-quite-so-dilapidated car that was clearly her own. Her son (?) was initially sitting in a car seat in the back, but later we saw them driving around with him on her lap in the front. We’ve no idea if she was An Post, UPS, Amazon or all of them.
Bikes would have been good, but taking them would probably have been more hassle than it was worth.
Shame we didn’t do the swim, but then we wouldn’t have seen quite so much of the island perhaps.
When we got back there was just time for a loo stop in the Baltimore public loos. Serviceable. They were the type with metal pans, but at least they had plastic loo seats and loo paper. There was also soap and hot water. 5/10.
Lough Hyne
On the way to our overnight stop in Ballydehob, we took a detour to Lough Hyne. This is one of those weird quirks of nature. It began as a freshwater lake in postglacial times but was later invaded by the sea. It is now connected to the sea by a narrow channel, where the difference between the water levels inside and outside the lough creates tidal rapids.
The car park was full, so we parked in what was probably a passing bay, but the road was wide enough that we weren’t obstructing it.
From our parking spot on the road, we were a bit too far from the action to see any sign of the rapids. But there were kayakers out on the water as we arrived; perhaps they got to see something.
The roads to and from the lough were definitely single-track and of the variety with grass growing down the middle. Luckily, we didn’t encounter any vehicles coming the other way.
Ballydehob
When we first arrived in town, we parked by the community centre, next to two Spanish motorhomes. Then, after starting to make a cuppa, we realised the campervan spots were further on, under the 12-arch bridge.
So we packed up the kettle full of hot-ish water and trundled 200 m down the road.
Walk into Town
We walked across the bridge and into town, did a recce and decided we’d eat out that evening.
Sue got hoodwinked by an acoustically active nesting wall. It was supposed to attract sand martins, but the bird calls it was emitting fooled both Merlin and Sue.
A lot of the pubs were shut, at least at about 5 p.m., with not much sign of them opening later. We decided to try a burger-and-chip takeaway that had been set up in an old fuel station. A pub-crawling local (she had a holiday home here) said the takeaway was good, so we went with that.
It was too early to eat, so we went back to the van for a not-stand-up.
Burger and chips at Bally Bia
We’d been told last orders were at about 7:45, so we made sure we got to the takeaway early, around 6:45. But after ordering a beef burger, a fish burger and two lots of chips, we waited about 40 minutes for the buzzer to buzz. Other groups also seemed to be wondering where their food was. It wasn’t at all obvious why it took so long. It wasn’t as if there was a stream of Uber Eats mopeds doing pickups like you see in London.
Fortunately, we could watch the world go by along Ballydehob’s high street.
The burgers were really good, though, and Sue took her chips home and put them in the oven so we could have sausage and chips tomorrow evening.
We managed three wee stops in the Ballydehob community centre loos. Not the best and not the worst. They were relatively clean, and there was loo paper. 5/10.
This stop is not going to win any awards, even with the van parked next to the water again. The smell from the local waterworks next to the community centre and the passing traffic mean we won’t be recommending it for anything other than a place to stay on the way to somewhere else.
Tomorrow, we’ll probably head to Mizen Head and stop there for the evening. There’s a deep partial solar eclipse tomorrow, starting shortly after 18:00 and peaking at about 19:10. But the weather’s set to be cloudy, so the best we’ll probably get is some dimming. Grr!
J
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