"Oooooh! I did not like the sound of that Tanya. That, if my thinking is correct, was an expensive crunching type of sound!"
I had not seen the low brick wall on my offside as I turned sharply into the harbour front car park at Portmaghee on my way round the Kerry Ring.
We left Castle Gregory earlier in the day but intend to return for the weekend to accompany Keith and Justine to the Dingle food festival. I had heard a lot about the Kerry Ring so thought we would take a couple of days to sample it's delights. Weather was good, road was shite! Good views but narrow, bendy roads with years of 'patch me up' repairs giving a surface that rattles the b'jesus out of Sadie. Plus, being a main road it was quite busy. This is a combination I do not like. It means slow. In Sadie terms that is very slow. To other road users it is annoyingly slow. Personally I get anxious when I see traffic impatient and up my arse! Consequently I am always seeking out a place to pull in and let them by which of course gets tedious and slows you down even more. Ideally I like to get off such roads and take a longer route using back or minor roads. This is what I did at Portmaghee with a quick decision taken to pull into the virtually empty car park to give Tanya a walk plus explore the village. That is when the nasty crunch was heard and I knew the result was not going to be nice.
Sadie was duly parked and round we go to view the damage. Oh dear! Two of the lower skirting panels damaged and blowing in the breeze but thankfully not completely detached from Sadie. I picked up the sorry looking scratched and scraped wheel trim and managed to push that back into place. A half hour later and thanks to plastic cable ties, a bendy piece of tin and some sticky tape the two panels were rendered secure enough for the journey to continue. There looms a costly professional repair job for the future methinks. I tried to console myself with the fact I knew this day would come at some point and overall it could have been a lot worse. However; I could not shake off the low ebb of my mindset as we continued.
A pleasant night was had by the waters edge south of Portmaghee before next morning heading over the bridge and onto the Island of Valencia. A walk to Bray head above the stunning cliffs under sunny blue skies was a real bonus. Especially the views out to the Skelligs. These two phallic like rock promontories sit about 13km offshore and the bigger of the two is a UNESCO world heritage site due to it's 1400yr occupancy by monastics up till the twelfth century. Their 2300 steps and beehive shelters, all laboriously hacked out of the Atlantic gale lashed bedrock, still survive to this day. This was all clearly explained at the excellent Skellig experience centre on Valencia where a welcome lunch of yummily good Irish Stew was enjoyed.
At one point on the circular walk around Bray head we were high on the cliffs and walking on the stiff, coarse bog grass. There was a good path but I had diverted to cut out a corner and was walking across this grass. Tanya lagged behind and in the end stopped. I walked back to her, placed my hand on the grass and understood why she was reluctant to follow me. Even lower than the grass there grows a prickly type of green gorse. To sheep, cattle or goats with their cloven hooves it is no problem. To a small dog with soft paws this bed of prickly gorse must be like walking over a closely packed bed of upturned drawing pins. I tucked her under my arm and carried her back to the well worn and soft grass path. Off she went quite happy to be back to plain old grass, bog and black mud!
Thank goodness for all the doggy blankets I carry in Sadie!
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