Ireland in all it's beauty...

Once again, thanks for the comments, keep them coming, it is nice to know someone is reading this out there in Internet land.... I get a giggle from them all, so cheers for that.

Today I had a great day, it was fantastic, I took another tour with Don. I am starting to suspect the company has only one bus and only one driver. Anyway Don is really nice, he just tells you lots of information and most of it is dead boring, but there are some gems in there if you can stay awake long enough. Today he gave me some real gems. As I was early (yeah, surprise, surprise) anyway we started chatting about why I was in Cork. I had realised last night that I had passed the village Bridget was supposed to have come from on my first tour with Don, so I asked him if that was right. He said yes, and then told me some of the history of the place, he also said that buses run out to there several times a day. So tomorrow that is where I am going. The church is still there, so I shall see if they have any records on site. I am not getting my hopes up as the priest will probably not be there, or they won't have nay records, but I might be able to get a contact name to write to from home. At the very least I will be walking the streets she walked, if she really did come from there. I am hoping to find out if she actually did. I am really excited, though keeping my hopes down too, if that makes sense. I have booked my room for another night and shall try to head to Cornwall on Thursday.

The tour started at 9:3o and Don talked all the way there... I nodded off for about 15 minutes but stayed awake all the rest of the day, it wasn't easy, but I soldiered on... The countryside got prettier and prettier. It was really lovely. We went to a little village on a lake called Gougane Barra. It was so picturesque, I loved it.
Here are some pics, the day wasn't very bright so the pics have suffered, sorry..


The church


I told you they don't have many seats in Ireland. They don't encourage you to sit on their walls either. Check out the wall in the foreground...

We then headed to Glengarrif, from there we took a boat to an Island garden called Garinish island. It was incredible. On the way over to the island we passed some rocks with seals sun baking, it was awesome. The pics aren't very clear at the day was so bad. I should have checked my camera setting, but I forgot!!


The seals


View from the island back to the mainland, what an awesome place to live...


The garden has lots of different areas, this is the Italian Garden.


Part of the walled garden..


Close ups of some of the flowers... gorgeous!!


One of the walks on the island.


We stopped at Bantry for a late lunch on the way home.


I saw this truckload on the way home and I thought "poor little buggers.."

I have heaps more pics, but will not bore you with them all. I hope you enjoyed these, even though the weather wasn't great. I shall let you know how I get on tomorrow and I shall keep my hopes down, way down!! Keep your fingers crossed for me...

Cheers for now guys

Lones