Trees – food for the soul

We couldn’t leave the Dingle peninsula without visiting it’s namesake. Dingle is a Gaeltacht town, Gaeltacht being the term used to refer to those areas of Ireland where the Irish language (Gaelic) is still spoken as a community language, and its culture and traditions are very much alive  – not that we noticed any difference apart from all the signposts were in both Gaelic and English.

Dingle is extremely popular with tourists, regular boat trips to spot dolphins, puffins and whales go out from here, it has a nice harbour, and it is known for its fishing industry and cuisine. It is a pretty town with the typical colourful painted high street shops and a bohemian feel about it with some interesting holistic shops. We stayed for lunch, and I had a delicious hake dish at The Marina Inn on the sea front for a very reasonable price.

We wild camped that night in a pub car park (we couldn’t eat at the pub as they didn’t allow George inside and we had eaten so much at lunchtime but I did manage a sneaky ‘Pornstar Martini’).
We were close to the beach, so I had a swim before we left the coastline, county Kerry and headed inland to a site in the middle of Country Limerick not far from the Shannon Estuary.

Before we left the UK, I spent quite a bit of time researching the best Sat Nav for driving around UK & Europe in a MoHo and the Garmin 890 was what we ending up buying – it had a big touch screen, included EU maps, you put in your vehicle size – what could go wrong. Well so far it has taken us down a few roads it is not familiar with and on this trip we had to turn around in a very tight forest car park – you can imagine the tension in the van and who got the blame?!! I spend a lot of time researching sites and places to visit that we can park and get to easily, working out the route on google maps as well as the Garmin. During one of our drives along the Kerry peninsula I shouted at Bob ‘YOU MUST STOP NOW AND TURN AROUND!!’ – I panicked as I thought we were about to go along a mountain pass that was unsuitable for our size van. The Sat Nav gets away with all these mistakes by putting up an icon on the screen of a MOHO with a question mark through it…..basically it isn’t always sure of the roads suitability for our vehicle. Reassuring or what…?!

Curraghchase Forest Park reminded me of Moors Valley in Dorset – it is a country park with a campsite in the middle. It has a huge Arboretum with marked trails around lakes and through woodlands. We spent 2 nights here and walked a number of the trails – it was lovely to be amongst trees again after so many beaches! I didn’t realise how much I need to bathe amongst the trees! George also perked up being back in the forest, more stimulation especially the native Red Squirrels that I never quite managed to get a good sight of!

The weather here was warm but drizzly, so we cooked using the Omnia and made some comfort food of brown rice, beans and veg with Feta topping. It feels like it has been a while since I have done this type of cooking as we use the Cadac BBQ so much, but as the weather starts to turn more autumnal this type of dish is more appealing.

We have been eating quite simply, breakfast of porridge with sliced apple, seeds, banana and blackberry compote (we are coming to the last of the blackberries here) – lunch is often bread, cheese, eggs, hummus and salad or the occasional Irish sausage bap. Sometimes we eat out at lunchtime and don’t bother with supper but if not supper has been BBQ veg, locally sourced fish, burgers and chicken. We are both eating less carbs at night although now and again Bob begs for some ‘tatties’ and who can resist an Irish potato?

Thank you for your comments. It is lovely to read them and know that at least someone is reading this blog. Having said that I am enjoying writing it, so if you have any questions that pop up whilst you read, please comment at the bottom and I will do my best to answer them.
We miss our family and friends and look forward to catching up with some of you when we return for a few weeks in October.