We had a sleep-in today. Tom's had enough of cars, driving and touristing, so the girls and I headed off without him!! We drove across the big bridge at the mouth of the Severn, and on down across Somerset. Dunster Castle appeared out of the blue (we had a look in its National Trust shop, built in the stables). We had an interesting drive across to Lynmouth/Lynton - up big hills (with a gradient of 1:4), arriving at 11.30am - in time for a Devonshire Tea in Devo...

Today we got up early and drove through Abergavenny and Rhayader on our way to Llangollen. We couldn't find the canal museum, so we went and had a look at an aquaduct and had lunch by a canal. They seem to be only about a metre deep. We drove on from there to Harlech. We were lucky, it was the first day of using a new entry - for the last 3 months people have had to climb 182 steps while the old tatty entrance steps were replaced. Harlech Castle was small but ni...

We slept in today, then got ourselves organised. We went to Monmouth and saw their bridge - it has a Norman portcullis and fortifications. We then drove on to Raglan Castle - one of the newest castles. It was really interesting. It's so devastating that so many of these castles were destroyed by men of power. The water in the moat was iced over - the rocks and stones bounced across the ice. After that we drove through the scenic route (via Tintern Abbey) to ...

This morning we were up at 3am and out of the house at 3.50am, out of Killarney at 4am. We arrived at Rosslare Harbour just after 7am and boarded the ferry just before 8.30am. Then we had breakfast, did some duty free shopping and rested/read/slept/did crosswords. After arriving in Wales we took the road to Lawrenny where we stopped and had a drink in the Lawrenny Arms Hotel. On the way we drove past Carew Castle - the sun was just above it, so we couldn't take ...

Shannon and Jess both decided to stay home today, so Tom and I went off exploring the Duffy land. We found Laurel Lough, Laurel Hill "townlands" (2 houses and a sawmill) and Lauren Hill Lough. We bottomed the car on a hill and thought we'd done some serious damage, but we hadn't, thank heavens. We found a dismantled railway line running down a boundary - it was built around 1850. We then drove on to Clogher. There was no sign of Drummally Church, but the graveya...