Mannin Island

Woke up at silly ‘o’ clock to write the blog for yesterday at my section house table & chair. Luckily I was able to nip along the corridor for complimentary coffee.

After deciding we would skip the €5 continental breakfast, we hit the road around 8.30pm. The plan was for me to ride solo to Cork, where Jackie would then ride pillion with me to our final destination.
We headed up the N25 towards Wexford, then started to bear left around it when it started to drizzle. Good start to the day!

A short while later, I followed Chris up an overgrown road & parked up in a tiny little car park at Browne Clayton Monument. We walked up the 100 metre track to the foot of the monument only to discover that there was a locked gate across the entrance barring entry to the internal staircase. Looking through the gate, I was glad, the spiral staircase was tiny as it would have been a tight squeeze, particularly in my motorcycle attire.

General Robert Browne Clayton commissioned the monument in memory of Sir Ralph Abercrombie, his commanding officer who died in 1801 at the Battle of Alexandria during the Napoleonic Wars. Surely it should be called the ‘Ralph Abercrombie Monument’! The granite Column is 94ft 4in tall and is the only Corinthian Column in the world with an internal staircase.

After the usual photographs, we returned to the car park & I donned my waterproof trousers for the impending inclement weather. I was glad I did as we travelled through rain & drizzle pretty much for the entire next two hours. We continued along the N25 passing the towns of New Ross, Glenmore & Slieveroe before arriving in Waterford. We took a detour through Waterford town centre mainly to avoid the toll bridge.

Our detour took us over the River Suir and in doing so we we left County Kilkenny & entered County Waterford. Eventually we negotiated our way back to the N25 & continued west towards Cork. Chris & I (the workers) stopped at a little garage to refuel our machines & our bodies by sharing a pack of 5 sausage rolls!

Onwards through ‘heavy’ rain, passing the towns of Dungarvan, Youghal & Midleton, home of the Jameson Distillery. A hot toddy wouldn’t have gone amiss! Maybe another day.

Around 1.00pm we rolled into the City of Cork, which was celebrating ‘Pride’ weekend. There wasn’t much evidence of it apart from some rain sodden stripy flags. We mooched around the damp shopping centre & settled on an Internet cafe, WEBWORKHOUSE.COM for a spot of lunch. The girls & I had a roll, whilst Chris had an enormous pizza.

The Internet cafe was a bit of an eye opener. It was full of geeks & potential (no,definite) perverts. We fitted in well! Some were playing video games, but a couple of saddos in tracksuit trousers were looking at photos of fat black women in underwear, whilst ‘rummaging’ around in their laps. It doesn’t bear thinking about!

Due to the weather we didn’t hang around in Cork, but instead headed south on the R600 in driving rain passing Riverstick & Belgooly to the apparently pretty harbour town Kinsale. I’d like to confirm that but the rain ☔️ prevented clear vision.

Despite the rain we parked up & explored the harbour, where an RNLI raft race was in full swing. The participants, looked cold & miserable, probably just like me. We watched them for a few minutes. We then strolled around the brightly painted shops in the town centre, then hurried back to our vehicles to complete the final leg of our journey.

The R600, which doubled up as the Wild Atlantic Way, took us along narrow country & coastal roads through the villages of Ballinspittle & Timoleague to Clonakilty where we got stuck in a traffic jam!! Possibly a horse & cart had crashed up ahead. Out of Clonakilty, we picked up the N71 & raced through the towns of Rosscarbery & Leap, before arriving at Skibbereen, the nearest town to our cottage.

We stopped at the Euro Spar & bought a few essential provisions, minced beef for a chilli con-carne & beer, wine & non alcohol Nosecco. Luckily we realised before we drove off & changed Nosecco for a couple of bottles of Prosecco! We also bought some ‘Scratch my Pork’ snacks!

Around 5.00pm, we drove into Meadow Cottage, our home for the next 7 nights. It is a very attractive looking Cottage looking out over Roaringwater Bay. We can also see a castle owned by Jeremy Irons. The lounge area has a random spiral staircase in the middle of the room taking you up to a very small mezzanine with a single chaise longue.

We had our dinner outside in the setting sunlight & had a couple of drinks before calling it a night around 10.30pm.

Song of the Day - Driving Rain by The Memphis Strange

Bonus Song of the Day :-

The Staircase (Mystery) by Siouxsie & the Banshees.Read more