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A Week In South West Ireland (7/8)

 

These pictures were touring around the South West coast of Ireland in October 2004.

  

 

 

After leaving Valencia Island we had quite a long drive, clockwise around Dingle Bay, via Killorglin and Castlemaine to Dingle – where we arrived about 7.30pm (already dark) and found Dingle Heights a comfortable B&B. We ate at Wild Banks restaurant which served excellent food and prepared a vegetable stir fry for Mark.

Dingle is known for having a resident solitary dolphin called Fungie living in the harbour. He has lived there since 1984 and in 2000 this statue was erected.

 

 

 

At the B&B we had outstanding views over Dingle harbour from our breakfast table. We hurried down to the harbour to book a trip on the 10 o'clock boat to see Fungie mentioned in the guide book. We needn’t have rushed - the office leisurely opened at 10.30am to take bookings for a midday trip which gave us time to do some shopping.

There would be no charge for the trip if we did not see the dolphin!

 

 

 

 

 

We didn't have to wait too long before we had several sightings of Fungie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of the pictures we took of Fungie this is our favourite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even if Fungie had not turned up there were excellent views around the harbour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The boat that took us out is shown here back in harbour.

We then drove around the coast to the area close to the lighthouse at the entrance to the harbour and had a picnic looking over the harbour. We saw Fungie in the harbour from there, which is more than a later boat trip appeared to be doing as we saw it travel out of the harbour and back at least three times!

 

 

 

 

 

Late afternoon, we drove to round the western tip of the Dingle peninsula. Here we found the group of prehistoric beehive houses at Fahan. These dwellings are constructed in the classic beehive shape from flat stones layered to make the walls and roof and angled downwards towards the outside to discourage the entry of rain.

 

 

 

 

We continued around Slea Head where I fed some leftover chips to an adult and a juvenile herring gulls. Mark spotted three passing choughs.

 

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