The Ham Nomads

26 May 2014. <IE> Burncourt, & Cork, Co. Cork —

Van parked at Caves

Drove to Mitchelstown Caves — all of 500 metres! Met Gemma, who was to be our guide. Had about 20 minutes to wait, by which time a group of Israeli tourists joined us. Went down into the cave system. One of the few places in Ireland where you can reliably predict the weather — it's always 12°, and 'rain' falls from the roofs of the caverns exactly 2 weeks after it falls on the ground above — it takes that long to percolate through the rock to the cave system! Only 3 major caverns have been opened up. There are others, but for tourist access OH&S would demand a lot of blasting to open up corridors, something the current owners definitely don't want, as it would damage the system too much. So the deeper caverns are reserved for spelunkers only!

Susie in the Caves

Magnificent caves, not ruined by over-commercialisation. Even the lighting is subdued, and simple white light with no fancy coloured effects. That's the way I like it! Even though photography is officially banned, I was able to take a few without flash — flash would have ruined the shots anyway — but the exposure times were quite long, so I hope my hands were steady!

Gemma herself was delightful, and obviously enjoys her job. Apparently after she's been working there a little longer, they will take her back into a lake in one of the more remote caverns — it's a 4-hour climb in, 4 hours back out. You've got to be keen!

After the Caves, we drove across into Mitchelstown for lunch. Nothing much here to look at, so we had our break and then drove further south, into Cork. On the way, there's a stretch of highway — the M8 — which is toll road, and the Garmin was doing its best to get us onto this stretch. Warren, on the other hand, was doing his best to keep us off it (tightwad that he is!). Warren won! We stayed on the R639, crossing and re-crossing the M8, but not ever joining it — at the end, taking an alternative route into Northern Cork, to an area called Blackpool, where there is a large Shopping complex and a couple of McDonald's. We needed the shopping complex because one of the stores in it was a listed outlet for Calor Gas, and we had run out. The Macca's did us for internet, and for the odd cuppa.

It turned out that the Woodie's DIY store only had the Irish 6kg butane gas cylinders, not the 7kg UK ones (with different fittings), but they told us where the Calor distribution centre is, some 25km to the southeast of Cork, so we decided to make the trek tomorrow.

We found an unsupervised carpark right behind Macca's, and decided to give them our custom until we were ready for bed, when we adjourned to the aforesaid carpark. Another good day!

Distance driven — today, 44 miles ( 71 km ); to date, 1,544 miles ( 2,485 km )