We spent our main holiday for 2014 in Ireland. Our first stop was West Cork, Baltimore to be precise. The trigger factors for Ireland were West Cork Whale Watching (Nic Slocum and his team) and the IWG Annual Seminar that we've attended for the last few years but just for the weekend until now. As usual for one of our multi centre holidays, there are a few pages so please click below for where you'd like to visit.
I ran out of space on the West Cork page after only two days so here are the photos for the second half of our stay in that beautiful area and our journey to the Dingle Peninsula for the next stage of our holiday.
Tuesday arrived and we were still enjoying dry weather but also easterly winds so no cetacean trip and the sea is forecast to be even bigger tomorrow. Seems we are fated this year not to get out to sea (we had the same problem in Wales earlier this summer).
We took advantage of the lovely weather and went to see Lough Hyne and the woodland walk nearby in Knockomagh Wood Nature Reserve. The name Knockomagh is derived from the Irish meaning bent or crooked hill - the path we walked up was certainly twisty. The wood is a small mixed woodland of about 12 hectares (31 acres) owned by the State and managed by the National Parks and Wildlife Service. It was designated a nature reserve in 1989. Together with Lough Hyne Marine Nature Reserve and areas of surrounding heathland and wetlands, Knockomagh Wood forms part of a Special Area of Conservation. It was lovely.
It was a very long way up slopes and steps but a really pretty walk.
There was quite a bit of fungus around.
There were various view points along the way and, as you can see, the scenery was spectacular.
Autumn was definitely on the way with a few leaves starting to change colour.
Pennywort is one of a number of plants known as "Mary's Candle".
Our reward for walking up to the top was this amazing mixture of heather and gorse. Stunning!
Back to the bottom of the hill and a quick look at Lough Hyne but there was hardly any birdlife in evidence so, after a quick visit to Skibbereen to get something to eat and some kind of cable that Jonathon couldn't live without, we ventured over to Sheep's Head.
The views were amazing but I was less enamoured with the path (it's that narrow channel-y thing on the left photo). Thankfully Jonathon had decided not to join me on the walk - his knee (and his nerves) would never have stood up to it.
This helicopter was dropping some stuff off - no idea what - but the lady in the cafe when I got back to base told me that the two men the chopper also dropped off were engineers and were doing some repairs to the lighthouse.
This is as far as I got. The photo on the right shows where I turned round. By then I was getting a bit tired and I was concerned that most other people were heading back and I didn't want to get stuck out there on my own.
I was really pleased to see this view because it meant I was almost back. Jonathon was waiting and rustled up some tea and a bowl of soup which were very welcome.
We were looking for birds in this muddy area on the way back to Baltimore but took advantage of the sun going down behind the boats. Glad we didn't wait until it went down completely because it just seemed to fade away in the end.
Wednesday came along and still no boat trip so we "did gardens". First stop Liss Ard Estate and Gardens.
The still water made for good reflections but in other parts there was a lot of duck weed.
Once he'd finished posing, he had to get over the trunk to go to the hide (not that we saw any birds when we got there!)
The blurb tells us ...
Lough Adisdealy is a designated Wildlife Sanctuary managed by the Liss Ard foundation in co-operation with the Irish Wildbird Conservancy. The long term aim is to create an ecological balance thereby increasing the bird population on the lake whilst reducing the problems caused by mink and the effects of pollution, most notably fertilisers.
Lough Abisdealy has a surface acreage of approx. 45 acres and reaches a depth of 20 meters at its deepest point. Pike, Rudd, Roach and Eel can be found there.
There were lots of conveniently placed seats around the estate.
Such lovely bark on these trees.
There were quite a few more autumn coloured leaves here than we'd seen in Knockomagh Wood the day before.
It was lovely to see great veg beds in the same area as beautiful flowers. The veg is used in the cafe / restaurant and we can vouch for the fact that the food there is really tasty.
They were clearly keen on dahlias - lots of lovely colours.
Jonathon likes to get personal with the things he photographs.
This was probably my favourite of all the dahlias.
The two goats, Daisy and Kitty, seemed to take a fancy to Jonathon!
There were a few hens in a fenced off area pecking about, as hens do!
First stop (unplanned but great fun) was The Ewe Sculpture Garden. It was a really thought provoking and interesting place with some great sculpture (both fun and serious).
The piece on the left made me think of my Mum with her knitting at the side of her!
It wasn't just about the sculpture - there were lovely plants around as well. Also some interesting verses - some amusing and some with a point.
This little lot were called "Family of Man".
This is Fat Saf, after a real life cat that terrorised his co-habiting cat and ended up fat whist the other cat ended up a bag of nerves and very thin.
The sculpture on the left is "Stairway to Heaven".
The whole of the verse about the Spider and the Fly was written out in the web area.
Next stop a small cafe / shop for a quick bite to eat then over the dramatic Caha Pass.
We were now in Kerry but we only did a tiny bit (the "land" bit) of the Ring of Kerry as it was (kind of) on our way.
Killarney National Park forms part of the Ring of Kerry and has beautiful lakes.
One of the great things about the Ring of Kerry is the variety of scenery you travel through.
We arrived safe and sound in Ventry on the Dingle Peninsula , checked in at Ceann Tra Heights, thanked Mary for the cuppa and cake and headed into the village for dinner at The Skipper (delicious).
Please click here for the next page to see what we got up to in the Dingle area.