We had a peaceful night and a good start to the day with an early-morning wander around adding to the estuary's interesting species list in the form of a handful of common sandpiper and a pair of greenshank.
And so, to Spike Island. The commute up to the shuttle boat terminal at Cobh was straightforward enough and we parked in a really excellent motorcaravan-specific site near the dock area where 30 dedicated bays allowed 48hrs of completely free stay, complete with a decent view out over the bay and rubbish-disposal facilities. Chapeau!
Spike Island is an interesting place and one which is pretty well presented. It's history has certainly been a chequered one with its roles as fortress, transportation camp and prison being dominant and - over time - recurringly interchangable. Essentially, it's a place where people have done bad things to other people - some of whom were thoroughly deserving of such treatment: but most probably not - for centuries.
It's a place that's clearly popular with tourists but because it's a huge and rambling site it carries its visitor volume well enough. We didn't bother with any if the many guided tours that were offered but didn't feel we'd missed out as a result. On the contrary, having the freedom to roam meant we were able to spend some time looking out to sea and this threw up an excellent sighting of a large pod of bottle-nosed dolphins doing their thing in Cork harbour. Whilst looking out we also spotted Sandwich terns, common terns and a rock pipit.
The return by shuttle boat to Cobh - which is a very archetypally Irish and pretty seaside town - saw us weaving back through hordes of tourists, many of them international (who had just that morning docked in one of the Aida line's lip-ships) and street artists galore. The street act we weaved past most vigorously were a couple of grown men dressed a leprechauns who, complete with greasepaint and booming Irish ditties, were dancing very badly to the point of occasionally staggering into the bewildered crowd of slightly frightened German tourists surrounding them.
Having scuttled past and escaped the visual and auditory assaults of Cobh we pretty much just drove to tonight's intended overnighting spot. That entailed a traverse of the centre of Cork, which is something I never want to do again in any vehicle, let alone a truck-based camper.
Tonight's spot is a secluded one down a track in the uplands. Or rather it initially appeared secluded. We were enjoying watching dozens of painted lady, red admiral and the occasional ringlet butterfly (as well as many bees and other insects) feeding on trackside flowers when two tractors, one with a bale loader and one with a trailer pulled up in front of us. There then began what was clearly a very visible covert operation where the tractor with baler complete with three sturdy chaps would disappear onto the surrounding moorland only to return a while later with dozens of bags stuffed with pre-cut peat. The operation continued for about an hour in total until the trailer could literally carry no more. Of course, it may be that the gents had the rights of turbary and / or a rammed trailer does not constitute a commercial quantity of peat but - from an uninformed gringo's perspective - this all looked a bit sketchy. It was a stark but approximately equally sinister contrast to dancing leprechauns.
Post composed at 22:05 on Tuesday 21st July from our intended overnighting spot N 52.02684°, W 08.81380° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:52.02684%2C-08.81380
