Ireland - St Finians Bay, Valentia Lighthouse.

After yesterdays exertions, we had a lazy morning, especially as the weather wasn't great, low cloud, spitting, drizzling, you get the picture.

Typical Irish weather forecast, the experts predict a 50% chance of rain.

Half an hour later, 100% chance of rain. (Does that answer your question Heather?)

Although we were here for 6 days there are still things we would have liked to have seen or done. Can't believe that people think they have "done" Ireland. Don't think we could ever be done. There were a couple of things we thought we could see, taking it easy, on our last day here.

Some more "L" roads and we found the Cahergal Stone Fort. (they are hard to date, basically Stone Age or more recent). They have really thick stone walls in a ring around a circular dwelling.

Their position gives them lovely views, although it was largely to be able to see enemies coming and easily defend.

The bottom layers of stone were original and the top had some restoration work but the walls and stairways were the result of ancient engineering.

We walked up some more laneways hedged with honeysuckle,

masses of blackberry brambles,

heather

and bracken starting to turn rust.

There were fields of these sheep with curly horns and speckly faces and legs

while this little robin hopped from post to post,

ahead of us.

The second stone fort, Leacanabuile, is a bit more recent and has circular and stone buildings inside the stone ring.

From the fort we could see ruins of a castle down by the sea so went exploring.

We couldn't get near, barbed wire fences and signs warned us off, but we wouldn't have wanted too as it was clearly a dangerous ruin.

The seaward side is held together with masses of ivy.

We drove back towards Portmagee and decided to take the short ferry ride across to Valentia Island. It started to rain in earnest so lunch became a priority.

We both warmed up with an Irish Coffee and Nicola had local smoked salmon. This was delicious, nothing like the overly processed and salty taste of the smoked salmon I have had before, more like a version of sushi.

I had the daily special, prawns in a chili and garlic sauce.

Fresh Atlantic Lobster was way too expensive for us (makes me glad I ate so much in Maine last year).

We took the little ferry across to the island (there were 5 cars on it) and drove a very steep, narrow, winding road down to the lighthouse. These roads don't even have a letter designation, they are little narrow grey lines on the map

The site includes ruins of a 16th century fort, a standing stone (unknown age) and the lighthouse (now unmanned)

Nicky and I both went up to the parapet of the lighthouse and enjoyed the views out to sea, across to an island with remains of a Viking settlement and inland to the sheltered Valentia harbour.

We drove off the island on the bridge at the other end and headed home for our last evening at Beachcove.

Looks so nice with the blue sky.

We took our wine to the picnic table overlooking the beach,

couldn't resist taking a few more pictures of the Skelligs,

were entertained by a pair of skillful surfers and their children playing in rock pools

while the smell of a peat fire wafted around. I quite like it but Nicky thinks it smells of dirt and poo.