Cable car mystery
Today was all about Dursey Island, a speck at the end of the beautiful Beara Pensinsula which sticks out from Ireland"s Atlantic edge. Nic remembered a trip 60 years ago when he and his father Ken went to an Irish island in a dangerous hand-cranked cable car.
Dursey has Ireland's only cable car, run on electricity. So we needed to know if this was the one. We drove the fiercely twisty roads to Dursey, waited in the queue (only 6 adults per trip) and were eventually carried in a tiny wooden cabin, across the boiling tidal rips in the channel below. L noticed the bottle of holy water hanging from the ceiling, next to the CCTV camera and a VHF radio for emergencies.
Some people live or farm sheep there, but not in winter. There are a few paths up and down the few miles' length of the island, and we walked them for a couple of hours, happily without rain. We took the mountain route on the way back. By now it was clear this was not the mythical cable car of Nic's youth. That memory remains a puzzle. But it was a good day out, and we logged over eleven thousand steps.
Some people live or farm sheep there, but not in winter. There are a few paths up and down the few miles' length of the island, and we walked them for a couple of hours, happily without rain. We took the mountain route on the way back. By now it was clear this was not the mythical cable car of Nic's youth. That memory remains a puzzle. But it was a good day out, and we logged over eleven thousand steps.
It was only 3pm, so we climbed back in the van and drove another hour to Derreen Gardens- a bit of a misnomer, as there are no flowers to see, but endless acres of giant exotic trees, rhododendrons (all blossom gone) and huge tree ferns. It's a beautiful green place, verging on the sea. Tea and a slice of cake were consumed. We read that Derreen estate was gifted to a Brit by Oliver Cromwell yet another huge estate that was effectively stolen by the English. More evidence of the brutal colonialism exercised in Ireland, which makes us ashamed.
Being quite tired by now, we looked for a place to eat out rather than cook, and found Helen's Bar. It was homely, crammed with Irish familes and a small scattering of tourists. Helen greeted us and gave us a menu of astonishingly good and cheap food. L had scallops and N had scampi, with some Murphys stout to boot.
As we set off for the campsite, it started to rain in earnest. We've been quite lucky with the changeable weather. Now we sit, with the rain hammering on the windows, reading and planning for tomorrow.
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