Ireland - Baltimore to Mizen Head.

In contrast to yesterday, today dawned bright and sunny with 0% chance of rain. As we had spent most of the day at home yesterday we had more of a driving day today, going up to the next peninsular north of us.

Jackdaw in the pine tree, from the cottage. Look at that blue sky!!

Through Skibbereen and Ballydehob and our first stop was

an ancient altar. It had been used in more recent times too, when the British forbade the preaching of Catholicism in Irish churches, so services were held here.

From here we could see Mizen Head, way off along the coast.

We also got our first sighting of the Fastnet Lighthouse.

We stopped at a very efficient little Tourist Office in Goleen, had a coffee and mailed our postcards in the post office attached to the cafe.

Windy, narrow roads, then past a sandy beach and in to Crookhaven. We came back to O'Sullivans for lunch later in the day but didn't have ..

It is a lovely, protected little harbour

with small, wooden, crabing boats

jostling with the pleasure craft at the wharf and out on the mooring buoys.

Out at the end of the peninsular is the Mizen Head signal station and lighthouse. This building had a cafe, gift shop, entrance and

displays about the area, lighthouses in general and the building of the Fastnet Lighthouse in particular.

We would be walking out to the Mizen Head lighthouse at this point of land

across this bridge. Here Nicola proved that she doesn't have a fear of heights (though she is not that thrilled with them). Her difficulty is with going down steep steps, she gets vertigo.

Looking down from the bridge we could see seals in the little cove below.

Also lots of white jellyfish and a few of these nasty looking red ones.

Out at the end, the coast was impressive

in both directions.

I am going to end this post at this point as it is 10pm, I'm tired and a little sunburned and I haven't even gone though the rest of the pictures I took today. So today's shots will appear in the 2 posts.