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I took a trip to Purple Mountain in County Kerry this weekend. Purple Mountain is the highest in a small cluster of peaks directly across the lake from the town of Killarney.
We started our trip by the tourist centre at Kate Kearney’s cottage. From there we walked through the Gap of Dunloe, a spectacular narrow valley cutting through Ireland’s highest range of mountains. A low cloud accompanied us for the entire distance. It was magical.
As if on cue, the fog lifted just as we began our ascent. We spent an hour and a half climbing uphill beneath an unrelenting sun.
Dry blanket bog gave way to loose stone during the last few metres of the climb to the summit. The mountain is well-named: the old red sandstone gives the mountain a purplish hue from afar. While we were there, a helicopter flew through the Gap. You don’t see a helicopter flying beneath you every day.
We proceeded on to Tomies mountain where we were rewarded with one of the most spectacular views in all of Ireland. To the West rose the Magillicuddy Reeks and Carrauntoohil. To the North, the Dingle Peninsula swept into the sea. To our East was Killarney, Lough Leane and the mountains beyond.
The sounds of thunder could be heard in the distance. Rain swept down in torrents near Mangerton. The rumbles began to get louder. It was time to go.
What a day.. not too hot, not too cold, a refreshing breeze, good company and delightful scenery throughout. This was the charity cliff walk from the small village of Ballycotton to the even smaller village of Ballinrostig in East Cork.
The walk stretched 20 km (13 mi) along beaches, over cliffs, through dense bushes and across fields with the walkers never too far from the coastal margin. Over 360 people attended today, raising money for the local Chernobyl charity.
I am very familiar with the local coastline, although my walks tend to be along the rocks, where I constantly have to be alert to changes in the tide.
It was a long walk. We started at 11.30 am and didn’t finish until after 4.30. Many people (the serious types) managed it in much less time. At the end of the walk, there were sandwiches and soup waiting for us. They tasted utterly delicious.
I’m in Barcelona tonight, attending a 3 day training course. I was here before a few years ago, but I had forgotten how beautiful the city is. Every building has its own individual character.
We had our evening meal in a restaurant called “Los Caracoles” (The Snails), just off Las Ramblas. We walked right through the kitchen to get to the restaurant. And what a restaurant! It’s a rabbit warren, with small rooms everywhere - upstairs, downstairs, nested in alcoves, stretching beyond low corridors. A veritable Hogwarts for food addicts.
Celtic supporters were out in force tonight, but the mood was somewhat suppressed given that they were defeated 1-0 by Barcelona. That means a good sleep for me tonight.
I managed to get myself up very early last weekend in order to take a few photos down by the coast while the sun was low in the sky.
This photograph, of the fields, the mist and the windswept bush in the foreground, was taken on my way down to the beach. I love it.
The above are a few photos taken of the coast and the rocks as they are bathed in the orange searchlight glow of sunrise. Check out the rock monster poking his head out of the ground!
I took these shots with my mobile phone camera near Sean O’Casey Bridge on my way back from work last Monday.
This picture was taken just south of Sean O’Casey Bridge, a low sun and surprisingly few people around.
The docklands are undergoing a massive transformation. For some years now, tall cranes have dominated this area, once populated by warehouses and derelict sites.
Finally the Ulsterbank group headquarters, Connolly Hall, the Customs House and the Spire in silhouette, as the sun diminishes into the west.
I was in Brittany a few weeks ago, attending the wedding of a good friend of mine. My elder kids and my mum came with me. Even though we only had a week before the kids went back to school, we managed to see a lot of the Breton countryside (as well as a few places in Normandy too).
Carnac is one of the busiest beaches in Brittany - soft white sand, calm waters and one of the best ice-cream shops I have ever visited in my life. Oh, and they do sand sculptures too. Pah! Easy-peasy. Anyone could do it.
Carnac is famous for its 6,000 year old megaliths - granite pillars of varying size, aligned in rows and columns over a distance of almost 4 kilometres. Some people say it was a vast army turned into stone. Others claim it had a religious and astronomical purpose. I think myself it might have functioned as gigantic spreadsheet for Bronze Age accountants.
I found a number of imposing World War II fortifications in Gavres - a small village overlooking the city of Lorient. Lorient was a major U-boat base during the war. The city was practically razed to the ground during the first months of 1943.
Le Mont St Michel, in the extensive mudflats of western Normandy, is one of the great “must see” places in Europe. Built on a granite outcrop and accessible via a long narrow causeway, the monastery dates back to the 8th Century with the main fortifications dating from the 15th century. It even served as a prison for a while after the French Revolution. More recently, Peter Jackson used it as his template for Minas Tirith in the Lord of the Rings. Yeah, yeah, it’s touristy and kitchy inside, but even so, it’s an impressive and inpirational place. The views take your breath away.
Here are my kids in a classic “James Bond” pose on a concrete defense in Utah Beah, the most northerly of the main landing beaches in Normandy. The invasion sequence in the film “Saving Private Ryan” was shot in Ireland, on Curracloe Beach in Wexford. The similarities between the beaches are incredible. Now quiet and placid, it is impossible to imagine what the beach would have looked like during the summer of 1944.
Finally, a sunset scene: taken from the ship on our way back home.
I managed another trip to the Galtees last weekend. This time we took a different route, ascending the valley by Lyreacappul (Ladhar an Chapaill), traversing the ridge of Monabrack and descending into the valley by Sliabh Cois na Binne: a gigantic horseshoe route that took over 5 hours to complete. Apart from the occasional rain-shower, it was a magnificent day. The views from the top were incredible. The entirety of the southern half of Ireland is visible from the summit. What was missing was a view of the sea: the Galtees are Ireland’s only inland mountain range.
Click on the photos to enlarge
Last Sunday, I journeyed with a few like-minded souls to Coumshingaun in the Comeragh Mountains in Co. Waterford. The centrepiece is a corrie lake caused by glaciation during the last Ice Age. The corrie has a classic “armchair” shape: two gently ascending narrow ridges with precipitous drops on all three sides.
The journey upwards was quite difficult, compared to Galteemore. It’s a more challenging ascent due to the preponderance of rock outcrops and winding, up/down paths.
It took us about 2 hours to reach the top. Here’s a view of the ridge by which we ascended.
The “summit” is pretty flat, owing to the fact that the Comeraghs are about 350 million years old. Significant weathering, not to mention a few Ice Ages thrown in for good measure, have reduced the mountains to a uniform boggy plateau around 700 metres high.
Coumshingaun lake is impressive - a mile long, dark, mysterious, fed by gently gurgling waterfalls. Strewn around it are tons of piled up debris from ancient landslides.
We completed the “armchair” circuit in good time, returning to the car park in just over four hours. Just the antidote for those Monday morning blues!
Yesterday I went on a walk to Galteemore, the highest inland mountain in Ireland, just over 3,o00 ft high and the smallest of Ireland’s 14 munro’s.
Galteemore is part of the Galtee range in South Tipperary. The mountains stretch about 20km in an East-West direction - roughly-speaking from Cahir to Mitchelstown. The main Dublin-Cork road skirts around its southern and eastern flanks. The Galtee’s are part of the same mountain building event that formed the extensive ridge-valley system of South west Ireland. North of the Galtees the sandstone ridges begin to disappear and the flatter terrain of the Irish Midlands begins.
I found the walk to the top quite easy, not to say picturesque. The col between Galteemore and it’s smaller sibling, Galteebeag, shows signs of ancient “bog bursts”, or landslides, where entire sections of peat seem to have fallen into the corrie lake below, exposing the solid rock base.
From the summit of Galteemore it is possible to see an amazing amount of southern Ireland: Waterford, Kilkenny, Cork, Tipperary, Limerick: possibly even Kerry, Clare and Carlow. Unfortunately I was unable to see anything at the summit as quite a dense fog closed in.
Yesterday we went down to Cobh to see a huge ocean liner arrive into the port.
The town of Cobh* has a fascinating maritime history. For decades, before the rise of air travel, it was the departure point for millions of Irish people as they set sail for the New World. It was the last port of call of the Titanic before its fateful crossing. It received the dead bodies from the Lusitania, when it was torpedoed off the Old Head of Kinsale. And it is a later addition to the Republic of Ireland, a “treaty port” ceded to the State by Britain just before the onset of World War II. The headquarters of the Irish Navy is just across a narrow channel from Cobh, on the island of Haulbowline.
The ship, the Navigator of the Seas, is one of the largest cruise ships in the world with a weight of 140,000 tonnes. It can carry over 3,000 passengers. In this case, the boat was on a short weekend trip from Southampton. The passengers must have been amazed when they were greeted by a large crowd of onlookers. It was a holiday weekend here, with a local festival happening in the town.
My kids were well impressed. A floating hotel of this magnitude is an impressive sight, no matter what age you are.
* Cobh is pronounced, and means, “Cove”: unusually, an “irishisation” of an English word. Most of our place names are anglicisations of Irish Words.
These ones are a bit different, but I thought I would share them with you anyway.
The Niagara Falls (Horseshoe Falls) from a slightly different perspective.
Reflections on a building in North York
Whirlpool, Niagara Gorge.
CN Tower from Centre Island
With St. Patrick’s Day on the way, I took a short spin over to Blarney Castle to take a few pictures.
I’ve never kissed the Blarney Stone - the idea of suspending myself under a damp rampart to press my lips against it in the hopes that I will speak more eloquently seems rather pointless, if not somewhat unhygienic. Anyway, I think I have already have the gift of the gab. You don’t want me to get super-charged on gabbing, believe you me. It’s a magical de-gabbing stone I need.
Click on any photo above for more detail.
The grounds of Blarney Castle are delightful. Along with the impressive ruined castle, there are all sorts of structures to discover including a lookout tower, a lime-kiln and Blarney House itself. Then there is the lake, the cave and the Rock Close: a pleasant walled garden not far from the castle. Spring has come early this year, so all the trees are budding, the daffodils are everywhere and the hazel catkins are in full flower. Not a shamrock in sight.
I’ve just uploaded a selection of my favourite photos from the past few years and I’ve set up a permanent “My Photos” page on the blog for easy access.
Most of the following pictures relate to places I have visited in Ireland. Click on the thumbnails to be brought to a bigger photo. I’ll try to annotate them soon if I get a chance.
It’s just a reminder to me that I live in a beautiful country.
Panoramas
Connemara 2004
Achill Island 2005
Wexford 2005
Kerry 2005
Clare 2006
Cork 2006
Over the last few days we have had a continuous barrage of gale-force and storm force winds. Curiously, the weather was meant to be dreadful today but it didn’t turn out like that in Cork at least. It was actually quite a pleasant day..
In any case I still had to get down to the sea to take a few photos. I don’t know about you, but there is nothing like the sea during a storm.
I harbour a strong desire to spend a few weeks travelling around the US. I’ve been there many times, but normally just to the big cities on business. Many a time in the recent past, I have been sorely tempted to turn left on the I-90 heading south towards O’Hare.
Well, here’s someone who is doing just that, right now. Every day he writes up a blog entry (or three) eloquently describing his experiences as he tours the US in an RV with his wife. Superlatives fail me. I’m enthralled, amazed and astonished by the places he describes, the photographs he is taking and the experiences they have having as they visit lesser-spotted America.
Rock on, Fred. May the road rise to meet you.
I wonder if the tourist industry has cottoned on a new and growing segment of the market: the Internet Meet-up? People, who seemingly have little in common with each other, who live in different parts of the world and who don’t even know each other’s first names let alone ever actually seeing each other, are travelling long distances to get together and have a few drinks. The funny thing about all this is that sometimes these “strangers” know far more about each other than most of their friends, so a memorable experience is almost always guaranteed.
This weekend, I travelled to London to meet a number of friends and acquaintances from a website I’ve been part of for years. We met each other in the London Wetlands Centre where one of the group gave us a guided tour of the site. The centre was formerly a disused reservoir but now it’s an extremely well equipped birdwatching site, complete with hides, information displays, a cafe and an education centre. Apart from the planes flying overhead on the Heathrow flight path, you would be hard-pressed to believe you were in the centre of a large metropolis.
From there we journeyed across town to Holborn, where I met up with a large number of people from the website. It was one of those nights. I vaguely remember talking about “Wanderly Wagon” at one stage. Apparently, it’s quite well known to legions of Dr. Who fans (well, when I say “legions” I mean at least the 3 Dr. Who fans I met in the pub), who figure that Fortycoats was the Irish version of Dr. Who. It’s conversations like this that made the trip worthwhile.
The following day I took the train to Greenwich to see the observatory. It’s wonderful there. The site is undergoing refurbishment at the moment, but nevertheless the visit is a very rewarding one. Fans of Dava Sobel’s book “Longitude” would just love it. I still got a bit of a surprise when I saw the H4 Chronometer sitting beside its more ungainly companions - almost as dissimilar as a MP3 player would be to a valve radio.
After getting a good soaking on my way back (the weather over the weekend was bad even by Irish standards and did I come prepared? No…) I settled into a tasty pizza and salad in the centre of Greenwich. I completed reading “The Wisdom of Crowds” there. An interesting book: I may return to this subject in the near future.
My final trip was to the British Museum. Wow! Talk about taking your breath away! The Great Court, with its domed roof, was hugely impressive. I felt like such an ignoramus! Can you believe it: I accidentally happened upon the Rosetta Stone. I wasn’t looking for it, I had even forgot it was in the museum in the first place and suddenly there it was: probably the most important ancient artefact ever found. In the same room were huge statues from ancient Egypt as well as intricately decorated sarcophagi. It was just amazing - what particularly intrigued me was the variety of stones used for the statues. Egypt must be an interesting place geologically as well as every other way
There’s a room upstairs that gives you a feel for everyday life in Roman times. What particularly impressed me were the toys used by Roman children: tiny camels and dolls, babies’ rattles and pull-along horses. Apart from Roboraptor and Playstation 3, are kids much different nowadays? (Don’t answer that).
The worst thing about a weekend in London is that the time goes by far too quickly. You would need at least a month to really get a flavour of the place. I’ve been there many times and I’ll be back there again, any chance I get.
Today wasn’t exactly the type of day to be putting on boots and getting outside. It had been bucketing down for most of the day. I was keen on going for a walk by the coast, but when I saw the rain pouring down on the balcony I decided that I would need to leave it for another day. But then I got a call from a friend of mine. He was interested in going on a walk, and without a second thought I decided we would do it, rain or no rain.
We met each other in Ballybrannigan Beach at 3.45, put on our rain gear and headed out. The walk is not the easiest: you have to scale rock faces at times, and you always need to be on the look-out for slippery stones. This type of walking requires the utmost concentration. The sea was wild! Not as far out as I would have liked, but we managed to do the walk without any problems.
My friend was the first person I have ever taken out on a walk on the coast. He has done hillwalking a few times before, but this was different. I’m not sure if he was expecting it to be so challenging. Certain algaes and seaweeds can make boulders very slippery indeed, especially in bad weather.
The walk is quite short, but it’s a good one because you get to see everything the coast throws up at you: sea caves, stacks, bridges, cliffs, wave-cut platforms, ledges, boulders, sandy beaches and little alcoves everywhere.
The major item of interest is a rock wall that is punctured by huge round indentations. These indentations, ranging from 30 cm to 1m, have been put there by great round boulders, some of which are still embedded in the rock face. There appears to be a thin ’skin’ on the boulders. I discovered today that similar indentations can be located some distance away from the rock wall. I’d love to know more about how these features originated.
I think I live in a fascinating and beautiful part of the world.
Water flooding into a narrow inlet.
Sea fishing on the rocks
Moonscape: a boulder field
An American colleague was over for the weekend, so I asked him if he would be interested in seeing a bit more of Ireland before he went home.
So this morning, I picked him up at his hotel, and we headed down to West Cork. We first went to Lough Ine and then to Baltimore, staying for a quick bite to eat in Bushe’s Pub. The day was beautiful, with quite a few people eating lunch outdoors, taking in the September sun.
We then drove further west, listening attentively to the golf on the radio as the last moments of the Ryder Cup were played out up in Straffan. We continued past Barley Cove and arrived at Mizen Head shortly after 3pm. Mizen is the most southerly point on the Irish mainland. There is a visitor centre there, and close by is the signal station, reachable via a winding path and a narrow foot-bridge. We spent some time looking at various memorabilia and surveying the rugged beauty of the place. Gannets were busy plummeting into the sea a short distance from us. Far in the distance, the Fastnet Lighthouse could be seen.
On our return journey we went through the town of Bantry, and then through the Keimaneigh Pass to Gougane Barra, the source of the River Lee. It’s an ancient monastic site associated with St. Finnbarr, the patron saint of Cork. Following a quick coffee, we returned back to Cork.
Before I returned home, I took a picture of the Cork Opera House at high tide.
More pics - this time from a recent trip to Co. Clare on the Irish west coast.
Thought I would put up some pictures from a recent trip to Donegal.
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