Thursday 17 September – Tregumna to Kinsale

 

Jamie was sick during the night, Bren got up to see to him. Getting up time revealed................. dull, grey and misty again; ah well it couldn't last! So the usual routine, managing to empty the loo and pick up some water – you have to take any opportunity as it arises unless you know exactly where you're going to be at the end of the day, which we rarely are.

Off along the Wild Atlantic Way bumping along the usual back roads we encountered a road closed – that's useful, so we backtracked and went another way, rejoining the route at Rosscarberry. Looked at several places to stop but more and more have developed height barriers however we found roadside parking at Red Strand, a nice sandy beach, so stopped to give the dogs a good run then had lunch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of our lunchtime tasks is to investigate potential nightstops but, as mentioned before, suitable places are getting few and far between. We identified a possibility on the WAW at Ring but when we arrived it was basically a small area on the harbour wall, very exposed both visually and weatherwise so gave it a miss. Instead we decided to just head for the campsite we'd identified and have an extra night.

But they were full. That is to say, they were at maximum capacity as allowed for by the Covid regulations even though they were only at 30% capacity. Whilst understanding the problem we pointed out a response to our email or even answering the telephone would have avoided us a diversion. But at least the guy did try and be helpful whilst we were discussing our next move and suggested a spot at Kinsale, which is actually the end/start of the Wild Atlantic Way.

And the sun came out! Think there is a pattern emerging here!

Kinsale is a busy little harbour town and the parking spot, later identified in a couple of our apps, was in bays along the old quay and close to the town centre – free past a certain point. So we settled in with our usual afternoon tea and chat then later walked into the town with a view to fish and chips. We quickly spotted a nice restaurant with a sit-in service so that took care of our evening meal. An ice cream for Tina afterwards (she didn't want the restaurants offering) then a more leisurely amble back to the van. We plan to return into town tomorrow for a proper look around, not so far managing any kind of visit – to be fair, though, because of Covid we hadn't planned to do much “visiting”.

Later Colin came round with news of an available campsite not too far away so we both managed to get booked for tomorrow for 2 nights, resurrecting our original plan.