ZigZag Wanderer

(With apologies to Charles Kingsley)

Sunday 28th September 2025

A beautiful sunny and warm morning.

Having ‘turned the corner’ now, and also reached the conclusion point of the Wild Atlantic Way (or Wibbly Wobbly Way as it tends to be described within the confines of ZZW), we’ve decided to spend a bit of time in beautiful Kinsale.

Morning duties done (myself taking Her Lacyship for a good walk and an even better emptying, and M rearranging the furniture) we took tea (Lyons: we ran out of the Yorkshire variety some time ago, but I must say I like the alternative every bit as much), and then wandered into town in search of the place of the breaking of the fast.

The harbour

And what a breaking it was, too. The full Market Breakfast at the dog-friendly Leona’s café is a proper stonker, with great bacon, excellent sausages, wonderful toast (fantastic bread) and poached eggs, with tomatoes and avocado too. Mandi’s plate also came with some spurious rather greasy brown/black/spotty-white discs on it. Thankfully I’d had the foresight to insist that none of those were dumped on my plate, so I didn’t have to sneak them into the toilet, thus cutting out the middleman.

The waitress might have been a teeny bit bored, but no such issues with the snap

Mooching around the town centre afterwards proved it to be full of decent-looking eateries (Kinsale has long had a fine gastronomic reputation) and shops – and some interesting architecture and artwork too.

Storytelling steps…

…interesting frontages…

…and colourful ones too

After an enjoyable exploratory bimble, we repaired to the van for a bit of relaxing, and blogging – and more tea; the decision having been made to stay another night.

It had reached 30°C inside the van on our return, so the 5v fan was broken out. It soon cooled to the low twenties though as the clouds began to roll in. Fortunately they brought nothing worse, and our week-plus of clement weather continued as the azure skies duly returned. Oh, wouldn’t it have been good to have at least some of this during our first two weeks here? Still, better late, etc.

Laziness got the better of us, and the rest of the afternoon was spent loafing around the van, but, by evening, and with the breakfast finally having worn off, we decided to walk back into town and pick up fish & chips, and eat them by the harbour. It has to be said here that Dino’s probably isn’t the best, though. Perfectly acceptable chips, nice crunchy batter, but a very small piece of haddock – and definitely not fresh in today from west Cork as their bumf promises. Three out of five stars, at best, sadly.

Nah. Should do better

The view on the way back was pretty decent though.

Monday 29th September 2025

Duller, cooler, but still dry. Having taken Lacy for her morning constitutional up Breakheart Hill (or Sore Knee Hill in my case) we partook of the tea ritual. Coffee can wait.

Trust me; it’s much steeper than it looks here

Time to move on, with a goal of Youghal further along the south coast, right on the border of Cork with Waterford, which would place us well for a hop to the Mahon Falls the next day.

However, on reaching Youghal, it quickly became apparent that the park-up was quite popular, even at 11.30am, and it was also a fair step into town – which didn’t exactly look inspiring. Passing through, then, except for a quick Tesco stop for milk, we headed on towards Mahon Falls – a day ahead of schedule!

There’s a suitable park-up there too, which comes highly recommended on Search for Sites, so we decided to settle in there and then walk to the falls.

Home for the night…

…and, meet the neighbours (apparently the sea is visible on a clear day, over there, between the sky and the land…).

The falls…

…and closer

It’s a pleasant 3/4 mile walk down to the falls, which are actually visible from the car park, viz:

Once again, although it was a bit murky, we were lucky. There were a few spits of rain on the way back, but not enough to wet your Acme Thunderer.

Tuesday 30th September 2025

Well, the Thunderer would certainly be wet this morning. It wasn’t really raining as such though, just very moistly-misty, with a few cohesive driplets. Y’know – that vey fine rain that soaks you through…

Anyway, it was another very peaceful night, accompanied by a huge French-registered Dethleffs tag-axle moho. Of course, as it was a very large empty car park, he had to park right behind us. It’s what French moho-ers do.

He cleared off (down the tiny lane down the mountain. Rather him than me in that particular ocean-going liner) eventually, and we followed around midday, heading for the coast via a shop stop for water, soda bread and coffees.

We parked at Kilmurrin Cove on the UNESCO Copper Coast Geopark, watched the tide recede for a while,

and enjoyed cream of tomato soup with soda bread for lunch. There’s something very comforting about tomato soup on a blustery, damp day, especially as we are both coming down with colds! The soda bread was absolutely scrumptious by the way.

So good, and followed by an equally excellent cherry scone

The next stop and potential park-up was just northwest of Waterford, at Waterford Greenway, by the river and looking across to Co. Kilkenny. As it happened, it wasn’t the best, so we quickly moved on to another further west along the Greenway on the Co. Waterford bank of the River Suir. Much better; more level, and potentially much quieter.

The Greenway is a 46km length of mostly disused railway line

converted to a walkway/cycleway – much like the Derbyshire Monsal and Tissington ones, except that it still has a track (at least on this bit) albeit converted from Standard Gauge to 3ft narrow gauge for the Suir Valley Railway. It’s a great shame that they are

no longer fully functioning scheduled railways, but at least they bring pleasure and fresh air to many.

Sadly, the weather continued to deteriorate – but the forecast for tomorrow, when we intend to visit Waterford, looks much better.

Wednesday 1st October 2025

Wow. October already. I believe there’s a Very Important Day coming up during this, the month of eight. Can’t think what it is though. Battle of Edge Hill Day, perhaps?

The weather, as promised, is much improved; cloudy, but dry and calm (and far from cold) so hopefully the raincoats can stay in the van while we take in Waterford.

The city of Waterford – Ireland’s oldest,

Museum of Time(?)

apparently – has a history dating back to Viking times, and indeed has a quarter, facing the river, known as the Viking Triangle.

The Triangle, with tower to fore

You’d obviously be hard-pressed to spot any actual Viking architecture, but Ireland’s oldest civic building, Reginald’s Tower stands there, and holds several atefacts from that period.

The city is a curious mix, with many upmarket shops, and many closed-down ones. It seems to be undergoing change, though, which hopefully will see rejuvenation.

We did find one delightful very dog-friendly café though, which had very personable customers and proprietor, so it was a given that we would lunch there – and very good it was, too.

Three hours was enough to see as much as we needed to see, so we moved on, out of Co. Waterford, through a sliver of County Kilkenny, and into Co. Wexford, yet another new one to us.

It was a pleasanty unevenful drive south, having driven north for some distance to effect a river crossing, landing at the small coastal settlement of Cullenstown, where we parked up for the night overlooking the beach.

Nice enough

Shell Cottage, just across the way

Last we’ll see of the sun for a while, I think