(L) Another big sleep in til 7 am and a couple hours getting photos and blog entries sorted before we finally got ourselves organised and ready to hit the road at around 10! 

 Last night we had done some washing and discovered there's no dryer in our self contained cottage so had all our clothes on the clothes horse sitting in front of the heater.... problem was they were still all sopping wet in the morning so we had to rethink our wardrobe for the day. I had washed both my long sleeved tops so Deb lent me her last clean one!! Not really happy that there's not a dryer here or at least an undercover spot to hang things. 

The only solid plan we had was to head to Aillwee Caves and then go wherever the road may take us. When we arrived at the caves the sun was shining and there is the most spectacular view that we were busy trying to capture whilst watching the rain roll in. It looked to be across the valley and heading our way but before we knew it small balls of hail started pelting us as we raced across the car park to the safety of the car. We drove from one end of the car park to the other to avoid getting any wetter and raced in through the rain to the cave entrance. 

 Entrance fee was €12 each, I think the priciest fee we've paid anywhere so far and after a short wait our tour began. We were very lucky as there was only 2 other people so it certainly made it easy to hear our guide, Liz, and stay within the comforting circle of light from her torch! I'll just add here too that as we were leaving we noticed that the next tour group had about 25 people in it so we did well there! Liz was extremely informative with her narrative explaining the history and formation of the cave and at one point turned off all the lights to show us how completely and utterly dark it is in there..... without one speck of light there is no way you can see anything, even with your hand right in front of your face there is nothing but blackness - it would be absolutely terrifying to be caught in there without a source of light! For part of the walk through the cave I was bringing up the rear and my over active imagination was conjuring scenes from horror movies where some alien creature plucks off the hapless sod at the back of the group, gives me shivers just thinking about it!! 

We really just drove all over the countryside for the rest of the day, stopping whenever we saw something photo worthy - which of course was around every corner! You really don't have to go looking for beautiful old churches or ruins as they are conveniently placed beside the road wherever you go. We did head down through Lisdoonvarna to Kilfenora as we thought it would be good to go into the Burren Centre that we had seen on our way through yesterday however when we got there it was closed. I guess that's the one thing about travelling this time of year, a lot of businesses are closed for the season. It can be hard to find a cafe open however luckily there is always a pub and as mentioned before you can always get hot drinks and food in any pub pretty much all day. "Off season" is still our preference regardless of the deserted towns and cold weather because it means there's not 1000's of (other) tourists stumbling thoughtlessly into every photo..... and we do love a good photo or two!

Looking down the laneway beside the Burren Centre we could see a church and the laneway looked quite interesting with definite photo possibilities. We started walking down the lane all the while having an ongoing debate on whether we should walk or go back for the car and drive down as it looked like more rain was on the way. No sooner had we made a decision and turned around than the hail once again started pelting down around us!! We made another mad dash to the car with Deb calling out "Unlock the door, unlock the door"!! and collapsed into the front seats in gales of laughter. We did try to take a selfie, all squished up and twisted around in the car with the hail behind but it wasn't our best selfie effort! We never did end up driving down that lane....

From Kilfenora we headed towards Killanboy but turned off towards Carron just before we got there, down an "L" road and somehow made our way back onto the route we had originally planned for yesterday. There's quite a few interesting sights (and sites) along here but it was drizzly and cold so we were happy to just stay in the car for now. We totally missed the turn for Corcormore Abbey and ended up going to Kinvara to see Dunguaire Castle with just a quick detour down to Traught Beach for a peek and ok .. maybe some photos were taken! Not too many though cos the wind was vicious, both here and at Dunguaire our hands were like solid ice blocks. One of the disadvantages of iPhone photography is you need your fingertips so maybe in the future we'll need those gloves with the touch screen tips!!

At Kinvara we stopped in at the supermarket (cos it looked way bigger than the little one in Ballyvaughan) and stocked up on wine ... again ... we also picked up a few nibbles and looked for some split peas to make a Pea Soup. The guy we asked had no idea what we were talking about - is Split Peas soup not a thing in Ireland??

Ok so now we've been out for about 4 hours and once again haven't had a real lunch (we do take a few nibbles with us in the car to stave off the hunger pangs, today we had corn thins, boiled eggs and cheese) so we set off homeward bound. It's only around 20 kms from Kinvara to Ballyvaughan so we should be home in no time.. right? Well we are easily sidetracked by a good photo op so when we saw a brown sign with the "view" symbol only 4 kms to Flaggy Shore - "should we pop down here" I asked ... "go on, why not" says Deb ... and we're off again on the scenic route. Just as well we didn't have poor Jane working today or she'd be throwing her hands up in exasperation. 

Photos taken out in the chilly gale and back in the car where we decide NOT to retrace our route back the 4kms to the main road (no that would be too easy) but instead turned right and went on a fabulous journey of discovering many other wonderful photo ops!! 

Now there does come a point when I have to put my foot down and say to Debra "step away from the camera" so we did eventually make it home before dark!!

The rest of the day followed our usual night routine of organising photos ( 600+ for Deb today), writing and publishing the blog, getting our clothes dry on the heaters (ok this is naughty and we wouldn't have gone out or to bed with anything on the heater but we were sitting in the room checking them constantly) and then made a lovely stir fry with the left over veggies. It's so nice when travelling to be able to make a good home cooked meal, apart from the fact it's also cheaper. 

(D) Not much for me to add as Liane has covered it all so well. Just wanted to mention though that the weather in Ireland has us a bit bemused, it goes from sunny, to hail, to sun, to rain, to hail, to sun again all within a very short period of time! So far we really have been incredibly lucky as though we have had a little rain, it's been only very light and spotty and, with great consideration, it generally seems to clear up to the sunny bits just when we want to be out and about. 

The wind is incredibly strong and along the shore in particular you could physically feel it buffeting you - and of course Liane got a photo of me trying not to fall over from being blown about by the wind whilst gingerly stepping my way through rocks. Not sure what I was saying but it looks possible that it could have been a swear word!

Luckily we are so dedicated to our photo taking because we suffer for it with frozen fingers. As we keep stopping so very many times on some occasions it's just "Oh I'll just dash out quickly" and not bother rugging up because it takes so long and is such a fiddly thing to be putting on hats, scarves, gloves, jackets etc each time...... mind you it could be a good thing that we do the "cold photo dash" occasionally as at least it keeps the photo stops shorter that way. Just imagine how much longer it could take - we'd still be out there!

Along with the weather another contrary thing in Ireland is definitely the roads signs - I'm beginning to suspect they put them up to have a laugh at the tourists.... even major attractions are sometimes not mentioned until you're physically at the place itself. So you'd want to definitely know the names of the LITTLE villages you might be going through on the way to the BIG ones....as I said, contrary! We are huge fans of getting "lost" though so it doesn't faze us too much - the worst that can happen is you stumble upon yet another gorgeous road and without any doubt in the world I can assure you there will be a gorgeous crumbling castle/tower/church or something down there.... so no complaints from us!

And last but not least on the list of contrary things about Ireland and all things Irish: handles turning the opposite way than we'd expect (took me DAYS to figure out locking and unlocking the front door here! Admittedly I actually had the same problem in Greece so maybe it's the carpenter blaming the tools but Liane is pretty savvy with those sorts of things and she agrees things seem back to front, switches are upside down etc etc.
It's lovely in a way though as it constantly makes us think of Dad - he had this remark he used to say when you couldn't figure out something that was theoretically simple - he'd call it the "daily intelligence test"..... how he would have laughed to hear that sometimes on this trip we are having hourly intelligence tests!