Unless I'm completely silly & wrong,
this is Dingle Bay. I climbed up the vertical
slope above the road, among the goats, to
get in the right place for this picture.
The babe of my dreams and the Dyane. And
sunny Ireland. Summer of 2001, it's vacation time. We hit
the road and leave for the Emerald Isle.
After a day's and night's drive, we reach
Oostende early in the morning. We take a
fast catamaran from Oostende to Dover. And
we surely notice the price increase of ferry
fares since the last time we've been here...
Dover is rainy, quite usual English weather.
Not much stopping in England, we visit friends
from the company in Basingstoke and go further
to Swindon. There we meet up with Martin
& Sue, the 2CV people, and join for a
couple of pints in a couple of pubs and a
nice chat.
Next day, we drive on through Wales and reach
Fishguard in the evening. In the morning,
we shall sail to Rosslare in Ireland.
First Irish impression: most drivers are
nuts! Driving is fast and the roads are winding
and narrow. But we've seen worse than this
and I adapt my driving style quite quickly.
Pretty soon, I'm overtaking with my Dyane
just like a native Irish...
We don't stop much in the Eastern parts,
we rush to the West coast instead. This is
where we wish to spend most of our time.
The first real stop is Killarney. Ireland
is full of really lovely towns and Killarney
is one of them for sure. An evening stroll
through the city center is a pleasant experience.
The next day, we drive around the Ring of
Kerry! The day starts with fair weather,
but ends with fog and rain. Very Irish.
Being from an Alpine country and enthusiastic
climbers, we toy with an idea to conquer
Carrantuohill, the highest mountain in Eire.
So we ask a few questions at the reception
of our campsite. "Have you got the proper
gear? Do you know your way? You might get
lost up there..."
We appreciate their concern, although back
home, we do the hikes of this sort and length
as an afternoon relaxation after working
hours. But the weather is not the best so
we decide to skip the mountain. We're still
a bit sorry, but we wouldn't see much in
the fog.
So we just continue circleing the Ring of
Kerry, stopping in lovely towns and at scenic
places.
Unless I'm completely silly & wrong,
this is Dingle Bay. I climbed up the vertical
slope above the road, among the goats, to
get in the right place for this picture.
The babe of my dreams and the Dyane. And
sunny Ireland.
The Dyane got her feet (wheels) wet on this
trip. Big time. Frankly, this stream was
not deep at all. Just a pleasant opportunity
for a cool picture.
This should be close to Slea Head. See,
there's sunshine in Ireland! On such days,
the land is amazingly wonderful, blue skies
and sea contrast with green landscape.
Going from Dingle to Stradbally, there was
this nice little waterfall just next to the
road.
The only really crowded place in Ireland
were the Cliffs of Moher. The weather here
was not the best, the tour buses provided
the crowds, but the cliffs were a worthy
spot to visit anyway. Impressive sight!
Our next longish stop was Galway and the
Connemara region. Mountains and lakes, deep
blue sea, bright blue skies, sun... But a
fair amount of rain as well!
Connemara is one of the loveliest parts
of Ireland. The coast is spectacular and
the mountains provide for a really nice hiking
challenge!
We did some hiking, the view from the top
of an unknown hill was lovely. On one side
neighbouring peaks, on the other little lakes.
The Dyane in Connemara.
Our base camp, Salt Hill just outside Galway.
Now we're making our way to the Achill Island.
I think this is the Clew Bay with Croagh
Patrick on the other side.
And here we are on the Achill Island. A lovely place! The
coastline is spectacular...
... and a lone 2CV driver awaits here. This
was the only 2CV we spotted in Ireland. It
belonged to a freelance photographer; we
spotted the man on the shore and thought:
"The man with image like this has to
be the owner of that 2CV up there!"
We were right.
We visited Sligo and the Donegal region
after that. The Inishowen peninsula was the
last stop before heading into Northern Ireland.
The most famous sight there was the Giant's
Causeway. Not the only interesting place
there, but we didn't spend much time in Northern
Ireland. We rushed rather quickly back to
Eire and visited Dublin before heading back
to Rosslare and sailing to Fishguard.
Then we hit the road towards Dover and sailed back to the Euro mainland in the evening. Once in Calais, we almost ran out of fuel... There's no fuel station on motorway from Calais to Belgium for over 100km! With last drops of fuel, we decided to leave the motorway and find fuel in the nearest village. Sure! It was late enough so all fuel stations were closed. And the pumps did not operate on credit cards, just local Belgian fuel cards. Luckily, we found a nice guy who had such a card: we gave him cash and he refueled the Dyane... Two days later, we were back home.