Traveling at this time of the year is quite difficult. Many tourist venues are closed for the season and so are campgrounds. We have found signs to campgrounds and when we travel the 12 or so kms to them we find that they are closed. We even arrived at one place as it was getting dark. There was no one at reception so we made ourselves at home. In the morning we wanted to shower but there was no one about so we could not get tokens to start the showers. When we were ready to leave there was still no one about so we just left.
It is also difficult trying to find places to park overnight. People build stone walls close to the road and there is no place to park. Some people build a recess for the gateway and may have a small section to park their visitors cars so it is not suitable for us to stop there either. We have found a couple of gravel dumps to camp in and so far haven't been woken by graders or workers.
We had to do some running repairs on our van as the sump cover rattled a couple of bolts loose and a garage worker kindly let us help ourselves to his nuts and bolts. John was able to fix it with the small set of tools we had on board.
Stopped for lunch at the Connemara National Park. The weather cleared and it was quite pleasant. The visitor's centre was closed though.
In the middle of nowhere was the Kylemore Abbey. We read that it was used as a boarding school now. It was originally built by Quakers.
There were many small villages with mussel and salmon farms.
The leaves are falling now and there are many trees with berries. There were some huge holly trees along the roadside.
Many people say that Ireland is a lot like New Zealand. Certainly some parts are like parts of the South Island but we haven't see much that looks like where we live in the Bay of Plenty. This scene of gorse and flax reminded me of NZ though.
We followed the narrow coast roads through the small villages and saw this castle at Slyne Head.
