Lakes, Lolly & Looking Back

As we work our way towards Dublin another month has passed by and our stay in Ireland is coming to a close. We reflect on our trip so far. We’ve been gone 2 months now and in that short space of time we have learnt so much about Irelands landscape, it’s history and people. I’ve said this before but the Irish are an absolute delight, warm, friendly, interested and easy to talk to although not always understandable.

We are now crossing county lines quickly after the slow roads around the coast and we’ve passed through Sligo, Leitrim, Longford, Roscommon, West Meath, Meath and now Dublin. I’m becoming familiar with county names.

The landscape is changing too – flatter with rolling hills, wider roads better for driving but busy. We are entering the middle of Ireland known in parts as The Lakelands. There are over 12,000 lakes, known as Loughs from the Gaelic word Loch meaning lake in Ireland. We have visited only a handful – they vary massively in size and depth and Ireland has the British Isles largest lake called Lough Neagh in Northern Island. There are some beautiful freshwater lakes, and several lakes are fed via the magnificent River Shannon. We spent a few nights camping close to the Shannon and her lakes. They are often set in stunning locations and are great to swim in – lakes somehow feel warmer than the sea. Lake swimming is a different experience, once you get over the thought of a loch ness monster creeping around beneath you !

Many lakes have campsites close by and are popular destinations in the summer months for water sport enthusiasts.

County Meath and other counties in east are known as the Ancient East as they contain important Neolithic sites with accessible tombs with stones engraved with prehistoric art. We visited one such place, Loughcrew Cairns set high up on a hill much like Badbury Rings at home.

Tomorrow evening we catch the ferry to Holyhead in Wales. After that we begin the journey south chasing the sunshine.

At the end of September we looked at our finances, to see what we’ve been spending and where. We set ourselves a budget before we started to spend approx. £2000 a month. But that was before the current hike in food and fuel prices so it was an interesting exercise to find out where we’ve spent the money.
In summary

August we were over our budget by £127.00 which I was pleasantly surprised with.

September;
Fuel €210
Groceries€713
Accommodation €600
Eating out €500
Sundries €177
Exchange into ££ makes that around £2K. Still on track!

We are spending far more on groceries than we anticipated, everything seems more expensive in Ireland. I don’t know if that’s Ireland or that everything has gone up in price due to high inflation. We shop for food every couple of days and the total does includes alcohol and dog food.

After two month we are feeling less like newbie motor homers but know there is still so much to learn. We are more confident and both very relaxed, the stress at the start has melted away and instead of bickering we just makes jokes at each other’s mistakes.
I think I’m a lot less fitter than I was (need to work on that) but so far haven’t put on weight and I’m sleeping better. The outdoor van-life feels healthy.

I have noticed that I haven’t read many of the books I took or started my craft activities on this journey. Perhaps we will have more time when we visit Europe.
Our only regret for this trip has been that we haven’t experienced enough of the Irish pub music and nightlife, mostly due to the fact that we couldn’t take George into the pubs.

We love Ireland and will come back and complete the rest of our journey from Donegal to Belfast as planned before we go to Scotland in the spring. But for the meantime family and friends catch-ups are on the agenda!

Sadly just before we took the ferry Bobs put his back out, so our last day in Dublin was spent in a huge shopping mall car park called Blanchardstown passing the time until the night ferry!
I did have a quick look around the shopping mall, I could’ve been in any shopping mall around the world – all the sane shops and same layout!! It did make me realised that this isn’t something that I have missed.