pics from today, Sunday 11th Sept

We had to laugh at how orderly everything in Belgium is - trees are planted in perfect straight rows, fields meet at perfect right angles, farms are neat and tidy, nothing out of place.
I had never even thought of Belgium as a place to visit, bit it is very pretty although we did find the people a bit dreary = I think they have too much stuff and everything's too perfect!
Next was Holland. We were just passing through the sticky out bit of Holland between Belgium and Germany.

I wonder if anybody of you'all have had a "responsibly fresh" lettuce before, cause we did in Belgium - I think they may have lost something in the translation there. We're finding fruit and veg. extremely cheap here compared with France, Spain and Portugal.

Wednesday night we stayed at a "campsite" in Holland - it was more like somebody just had a very large garden and allowed campers!! There was a little hut with a notice on the door saying that you just needed to put your money in an envelope with your name and address, how many nights you stayed etc.  and put it in the post box under the carport - all in Dutch, which thankfully is not a problem for us to understand - not reading it anyway, it can be a bit challenging when they speak.

View to the house of the campsite owners - we never saw them, seems they don't like to be disturbed thus the "put the money in an envelope and get on with your own life". 

View towards the road. There were no facilities apart from a couple of hoses and somewhere to empty waste water.

The hut with instructions. There was electricity, but we didn't need.

Cute gate sign made with horseshoes.

In the evening when we walked the dogs down the road, we were pretty far down when two very large Ridgebacks came running down the road by themselves - at first we thought they were with a couple on bicycles, but they were on their own. We had a bit of an encounter and had to do some shouting to get them to back off from our dogs - scary stuff as we have a psychotic terrier that will attack anything, no matter how big, and a large labrador who thinks he's the boss. After Spotty being attacked in Portugal, I confess I'm a bit neurotic with big dogs around him!!

Wednesday night we were in Germany and stayed at a lake - and I didn't take any pictures!!

THURSDAY and we arrived at Helen and Robbie - the whole reason for the trip to Germany was to visit dear Helen whom we haven't seen in probably 18 years - we worked with her at PE Golf Club all those years ago!!

Pictures of their lovely place in the woods will be coming up. We're having a fantastic time doing woolly crafts, walking dogs, cycling and just chilling - it is so beautiful here, they might have to kick us out if they ever want their place back to themselves. We're camping in their driveway :-)

The weather is like summer in South Africa, been a long time since we've experienced heat like this!!

Tuesday 6th Spetember 2016

After breakfast and a nice walk on the beach we headed off towards Belgium, just a hop away.
Found a lovely place to camp near a canal outside Brugge and decided after lunch to cycle in to the town as we had all afternoon, rather than leave it for tomorrow when the weather was supposed to be even hotter!! It was nice and shady under the trees so we were happy enough to leave the dogs.
Belgium is great for cycling - FLAT, with cycle paths and right of way everywhere, and did I mention FLAT!! Even I could get used to cycling here!!
The town centre was just a bunch of old buildings -  seen one, seen them all really. We bought some stickers for the truck (only reason to enter any kind of civilization) and had coffee in a little coffee shop. We toyed with the idea of sharing a waffle, but neither of us was hungry - on the way back we will definitely have to have an official Belgium waffle! The lane where we camped was quiet but for a gazillion cyclists coming past!! Most people seem to be over the age of 60 and most look miserable - like they been sucking lemons for lunch. There were a few friendly people who shouted hello, but most just looked us up and down with their sour faces so I said to Chris I wondered if we were doing something wrong when we were cycling on the path into town!!

 Brugge town centre

 Along the canal

 Camping spot

Part 3...... Sorry there wasn't a part 2 from our first trip to Europe, but here is part 3, second trip to Europe: We spent 2 nights with Barry and Jess in Woking, Surrey, Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th of September. On Monday morning shortly after we got up, Jess came and told us there was fun and games in Calais with protests by farmers and truck drivers to do with the Jungle refugee camp in Calais. Chris checked the ferry website and rang the automated update line and all was running as usual, so we decided to go ahead and leave when we were ready and see if we could get an earlier sailing rather than our booked 21.20pm - we thought it would be better to arrive in the light. There seemed to be a diversion in place out of Calais anyway. We arrived in Dover in thick fog, but it was a bit clearer at the ferry port. They let us straight through and onto a ferry that was leaving in 20 minutes!! So, instead of arriving in the dark, we left at 15.40 and arrived with plenty of daylight to get away from the trouble zone :-) Apart from a very obvious police presence, all was quiet - as Chris said, probably a lot of media hype and not much really going on, always best not to check the news too often. It seems a lot of people must have decided not to go to France via Calais because the ferry was pretty empty and there was nothing doing at the ferry port in Calais (or Dover for that matter). I reckon whoever manufactures those fences they've got up along all the roads around the ferry port must be very wealthy by now!! We headed straight for Dunkerque and a camping car aire - which was chok-a-block full when we got there; some of those people looked like they'd been ensconced there all summer. We went around the corner to a play park and fed and walked the dogs then headed for another camping area, right on the seafront. It was much better, with only 1 German camping car and a hippie bus with 3 English girls who are volunteering at a nearby refugee camp. Apart from lights on all night, it was a good place to camp. The doggies are always glad for a beach to play on - there were a lot of cyclists and runners though - never a good combination with our dogs who chase anything that move!!

Pics: 1) Saying goodbye to Aunty Cheryll and Adam

2) On the beach in Dunkerque

3) Some bunker things on the beach

4) Spot the camper

I didn't quite get to the impressions in the last update, so here goes....... my overall impressions of France...... Well, I LOVED it even though I wasn't feeling great most of the time!! The people are friendly and so polite - everybody greets you and they are so helpful. Even waiting in the doctors office, a young woman walked in and greeted everybody although we were complete strangers. The doctor saw each of his patients out of the door and called each one personally (no receptionist). The food is great - we didn't eat out, but the quality of the fruit and veg in the supermarket was excellent - it appears they get the far better stuff like cucumbers from Spain than we do in the UK, because even the non-organic are tasty. You could buy a whole pigs head at E.Leclerc if you like (just an ordinary supermarket like Sainsbury's). Far more variety and far more seasonal than in the UK. The roads are excellent - charging tolls really does keep the roads in good condition and even the more minor roads are a pleasure to drive on. Bins, bins everywhere - and some of them even separated for recycling, no problems getting rid of your rubbish. And, of course free or cheap places to fill up and empty out your camping-car and even some of them with places to stay for the night - usually a carpark, often in town, but you can always find somewhere to stop for the night. The only thing I didn't like about France was all the graffiti (in the same category as tatoos - tacky) and it's everywhere, every bridge, abandoned building, farm building in a remote field, just everywhere - really spoils the scenery!! I think we would both like to spend more time in France, in the summer!!

Update and impressions of France

So, on Tuesday morning once we were up and had breakfast and took the dogs out we had a look around the supermarket (bags of snails and pigs trotters were among the delights), then we drove to Chateau De Frere somewhere near Laon. There were just some workmen about to leave and then we had the place to ourselves. It seemed like an old fort (with a moat, which was empty - the workmen were working on this old part)and then the chateau behind it looked occupied. There was a wooded area where we could walk the dogs. The plan was to get to Riems, but we didn't quite get there - we are discovering just how huge a country France is!! Wednesday we got as far as a place called Pucey - which consisted of about 6 farms, not even a bolangerie (sp?) or a patisserie (sp/)!!That's where we camped for the night, next to a large pond. Thursday we decided to take the motorways and make a push for Annecy - that cost us over 100 euros in tolls!!! It would have been cheaper in fuel to take the back roads, but it would have taken 2 days!! We got to Annecy when it was already dark and although the place is riddled with campsites they were all closed until March/April. Not knowing this, we drove up and down looking for a campsite and eventually settled on the camping-car aire (sp?) which was fine. Our technology has been quite handy finding places to stop for the night or air-de-service for topping up and emptying the camping-car, but the satnavs have caused hysterics and anger in turns as they lead us astray - counting/not counting different exits at roundabouts etc. Friday I ended up going to see a Doctor in Annecy - kidney infection - same as I had in Ireland (bah!!) We went to the tourist information and she rang up the closest Dr. who happened to be able to speak some English, so with my meagre French (understanding more than I can speak) and his English we got along and I got an antibiotic and painkillers. We weren't going to drive today, but the weather was so awful that we pushed on to Grenoble and camped in the uni tennis club carpark - they have so many tennis courts!! That was also quiet, being outside of town and a Friday night, nobody was around either in the evening or in the morning. Chris and Humphrey went for a short run on Saturday morning and then we headed for Montpellier. We sometimes rebel against the satnav and just take a road that sounds about right and usually those end up being good. Today was such a day - we ended up on a backroad through some minor part of the Alps. It had snowed obviously a few days earlier, so there was still a reasonable amount of snow around, and such pretty scenery. We stopped on a deserted road through the pass and let the dogs out to play in the snow which they loved!! We stayed on the outskirts of Montpellier in th carpark of the Abbye St Michel Frigolet. Once the staff left and the bells stopped ringing we had a very peaceful night - it was almost dark when we arrived and the bells rang 9pm I think and then didn't ring again until 7am!! Sunday we reached the Mediterranean - of course we had to get onto a beach as soon as possible (Capao Beach was the name of the beach we found). There were loads of people bundled up in coats walking themselves and their dogs. Chris decided we were far south enough that he should be in shorts and a t-shirt - he did get some stares!! This was another area where all the campsites and everything else was closed for the winter. We did find a campsite that had a telephone number for bank holidays and weekends so Chris rang up and the man came and opened for us - for 10 euros a night it was nice to spread out a bit (that included Spotty getting a haircut) although all the facilities were being renovated. This was at a place called Ferrat Beach - not a place I'd like to be anywhere near in the summer - lots of holiday parks with all kinds of questionable entertainment, but absolutely deserted but for a few dog walkers and one other camping-car which arrived just behind us. On Monday morning Chris and Humphrey went for a run and a swim and I took Spotty on the beach to play ball a bit. We were going to stay another night but decided to go into town and do a couple of loads of laundry. From there we thought we may as well move on as the weather wasn't as good as had been forecast.

The pictures are in the wrong order - we stayed at the chateau (the ruins) first and at the abbaye after that

Catchup

Time for a Catchup What have we been up to since we left Devon on the 1st January........ We left Grindlebrook at about 12.45 after a long goodbye :-) and arrived in the New Forest after dark (this becomes a recurring theme). Setthorns campsite is just like a large gypsy encampment which was full to bursting with full-timers so we gave up trying to find a spot and wild-camped at Wilverly enclosure ready for the Parkrun there on Saturday morning. Nobody will bother you wild-camping in the New Forest in a non-designated area on the 1st of January!! Saturday 2nd January we did a wet Parkrun - at least it wasn't as muddy as Killerton!! Everybody was slim and fast looking!! We then headed for Barry and Jessica in Surrey; arrived about 3pm. They had a brilliant surprise lined up for us - they'd invited the Neil's for Chinese supper - lots of good food and good times, was great to see them after so many years!! Sunday morning I went with Barry and Jess to their meeting; home for a roast beef lunch and a lazy afternoon. Now I must add that our dogs were allowed in the house, and even got to meet the Neil's dog Boris on Saturday night. Humphrey was ridiculously excited at first - he hardly ever goes into a house so he charged around knocking stuff over and grabbing every soft toy within reach!! In the evening we went out to another meeting for the gospel and then back to Steve and Jane's for supper with many from the church. Monday morning we took the doggies for a nice forest walk, did some shopping and finally left dear Barry and Jess at about 1.30. We headed straight for the ferry port in Dover, arriving at 4ish so we were first in the queue. It was a bit of a bumpy crossing - best just to lie down and imagine you're a baby being rocked gently to sleep in a cradle - even I can handle it then!! We arrived in Calais at 7.30 local time. It was pitch dark, pouring with rain and we were trying to find our way, driving on the opposite side of the road!! The airs de service seemed to just be a dumping and filling station at the petrol station next to E.Leclerc, so we just parked in the carpark - the area which turned out to be staff parking we discovered when they started arriving for work at 7am on Tuesday morning!!

We're on our way again!!

Left Devon finally just before 1 today. Not a very far trip this first day - just to the New Forest - we found a nice looking Parkrun for tomorrow. Happy New Year y'all.

08 September 2015

Oh dear, it's been a while. I'm not even going to try and remember the order in which or when we did various things, but I'll just give a summary and try to remember the highlights.
So, we went to Blarney Castle and , yes, Chris did kiss the Blarney stone. I didn't see the point, even after waiting in line for about an hour or so up those 400 steps; I probably would have done my back in hanging upside down like that anyway(and besides I didn't think it would be exactly ladylike).

We spent more time at Inchydoney Beach (Clonakilty) and Garretstown Strand (Kinsale), both favourite places. Chris braved the water on several occasions and the doggies had wonderful times on the beach and in the water - nothing happier that I know of than a dog on a beach!!

We did the whole Ring of Kerry - beautiful  - and the Ring of Beara.  I have a lot of photos that I can't even remember where they're from so there should be a random lot of Irish scenery photos coming sometime, just loading them now.....

We did  zipit at Farran Forest Park, check it out here:

 http://www.zipit.ie/courses/farran-park-cork/

Damien would have been proud of me climbing those obstacles and launching myself on ziplines - only moment of panic was at the end of the second course we did where you had to bungy to finish - it's like the first time you use the auto-belay at the climbing wall, scary. I got Chris to hold the rope before I launched myself off, then I was ok!!

We haven't done much running - there just aren't the footpaths and rights of way like in the UK; everything is privately owned and although there are nice nature areas, generally (especially here in the Bantry area) dogs aren't allowed. We did do Clonakilty Parkrun which was ok - a 4 lap course, so no Killerton Park!! We have not yet come across a Parkrun that beats our home run!! We are planning on doing Bere Island Parkrun this Saturday - it's offroad and hilly - my style totally , especially if it's muddy!!; I'm not expecting to be able to run much of it after having such a horrible kidney infection, but I'll trot around at the back with the backmarker just to I can cross it off the list; sounds like a real fun one, you have to take a ferry over to the island :-)

Feeling really sad about leaving Ireland next week - I really don't want to go; can quite imagine living here.

So, some observations as a first time visitor to Ireland........Every town has 3 things that you always notice as soon as you get there: a betting shop, a barber (often Turkish), and a vet (well, that's what we've noticed anyway). There are a lot of butchers - in every town there is at least one, and that's great to see when there are so many empty shops.
Drivers are rude - seldom do you get a hand wave in acknowledgement of pulling over for somebody on the narrow rural roads, whereas in Devon everybody thanks you.
We didn't find people as friendly as we were lead to believe they are, and certainly the farmers are not like in Devon where they are usually very friendly. We think rural Devon is friendlier.
We've been based in Bantry Bay; not sure if Bandon is a city or just a big town, but Cork is the nearest city at 3 hours away - I can definitely live with that. Few shops means little choice, but here in Bantry we have Orgnico (where I'm sitting right now) which is a wonderful health/organic foods shop and cafe. I've been able to get all my usual things which I was somewhat worried about before we came. A lot of towns do have health shops but I'm sure nothing like this :-)

Don't know what the doggies have thought about all this; they've certainly enjoyed all the extra time and attention we've had for them!!

I will be adding more if I think of anything else, and of course, photos, but there are hundreds of them and it's taking ages......I may spend the 4 hours on the ferry sorting out photos :-)

Tuesday 11th August 2010

Finally did the red circular walk from the camp spot in the forest. It does have warnings that it's tough and you need to be dit and be wearing proper hiking boots etc., and when you get to the uphill bit, you can understand why. Estimated time was 2 1/2 - 3 hours, we did it in just under 2 with a slight diversion at the end......so, very do-able if you are fit, and most enjoyable. Did most of the rest of the Ring of Kerry (didn't realize that it was the horrible Puck Fair in Killorglin - had to drive through that mess!! http://puckfair.ie/   - you can read about it here - stupid and horrid and it should be banned!!) that we haven't done and ended up on Valentia Island where we payed for a campsite - luxury to have nice long hot shower!! Beautiful little place, walked the doggies to the sea front where there was all kinds of activity. The campsite is very new - only been open a few months so everything is clean and neat and brand new - lovely.

Wednesday 12 August 2015

Hung around at the campsite for part of the morning, took another walk to the sea front with doggies, the clouds came over so we decided against kayaking or swimming and went on to Geokaun Mountain and Fogher Cliffs. Did the circular walk and never got to the lookout point at the top because there were so many people and we had our anti-social dogs with us so we didn't get to see the view of the whole island from the top, but it was pretty nice anyway, lovely little place, we might go back......
Went via Waterville on the way back and who should we meet in the street while we were walking along looking for a bin, but a man and a billy goat (called Billy) The man said Billy started coming into their yard a few years ago in Autumn and winter to eat and last autumn decided to stay. They think he's about 14 years old - he's very calm and placid, just lay there. The wild goat conservation people have taken DNA samples to see if he's pure mountain goat because some farmers release domestic male goats that they don't want into the wild so there's a lot of crossing.

With Billy the goat and his man who's English, not Irish

Saturday 8th - Monday 10th August 2015

Usual boring days when Chris is at work, spent Saturday by the fish factory. Sunday at least there's church to look forward to; stayed for tea after the service and got to chat to various people. Funny to meat up with Robert and Helena Mole who are off to North Wales to live. Good message "Do you love me more that these...?"
Monday was spent doing washing and then we headed for Killarney and our favourite camping spot in the national park.

Friday 7th August 2015

Spent the day at Inchydoby beach, another lovely day, walked doggies, we went for a stroll, Chris even flew his kite a bit etc. Just a great outdoor day!!

Thursday 6th August 2015

Headed for Cork; Chris found a specialist running shop online which he wanted to go and visit. I didn't feel like traipsing around Cork so doggies and I just waited while C found some new road shoes. He came back and said there is also an outdoor shop, so we headed for that and he finally found a nice backpack (trail running pack something like mine), we also splashed out and got new raincoats (a definate necessity in this country!!). Thankfully the raincoats were on sale, because that was a VERY expensive day!!
Yay, then we headed for Clonakilty, and Inchydoby beach!! Weather was lovely, and as usual on lovely days, we spent most of it driving so it was great to be at the beach and get outside. It's  a nice place to spend the night - we'd camped here on our way down to Bantry the first time so we knew it to be a good spot; doggies always have fun on the beach!!

Wednesday 5th August 2015

Utterly miserable day, spent the day taking a scenic drive (not on purpose, we got lost) . Just as well we got lost because the weather was so awful it was only good for being inside. Stopped at a nice shop and tea-room. Bought a few goodies - including some more ordinance survey maps (we'd better be coming back to Ireland with the number of maps we've collected!!)
Headed back to "our" campsite, this time there were about 5 other motor homes amped for the night. Walked the doggies to the waterfall; got eaten alive by midges!!

Tuesday 4th August 2015

WASHING, loads of it. Spent most of the day parked outside Adrian and Camilla's house waiting for washing/drying!!
After 5 we finally left and headed towards Killarney. Now, just when one was thinking Ireland couldn't get more beautiful, we hit the ring of Kerry!! Wow!! Found a lovely, but midge infested, forest carpark to camp in, about 5 miles outside Killarney.There are 3 circular walks that start from there; we like the look of the most challenging one which is 2 - 3 hours and goes up on the ridge of the mountain - we'll definately head back to do that!!

Monday 3rd August 2015

Breakfast etc, then at 12 those of us going up to see the boys camp left. 

You can read about the boys camp here:

http://wilderness.ie/

Have pics from that too.......somewhere!!

Left camp at about 4, heading back for Bantry, got back just after 8. Chris had a very busy weekend at the hotel, so he finished work quite late.

Saturday 1st August - Sunday 2nd August 2015

http://www.anabaptistireland.org/sermon-recordings/?sermon_id=241

Messages from the family conference can be heard here.

Being technologically challenged, I can't find/load any of my pictures.............so, hopefully some pictures from the weekend to follow at some stage!!

Friday 31st July 2015

Headed off to Dunmore East all by myself (with doggies) for family conference at Dunmore East Christian Fellowship. Was a bit nervous driving all that way in the motorhome, which I'd only driven for the first time about 10 days ago!! And in a strange country!! But, it is a pretty straightforward drive from Bantry, well signposted at Cork where the roads were a bit bigger and busier, and the church-house is well signposted so we arrived safely. Left at 11, got there at 3.30, with a half hour break for lunch.
The folks had arranged for me to park at Wendell and Sherri, right next to the church-house.
Supper was at 6 and after that it was time for introductions. Silly me, I should have had the camera ready to take pics of each family as they went up, but , of course, I thought of that too late........
Great time if visiting and catching up with friends and meeting new people

 Mike showing us the very clever chair consisting of 2 pieces that slot into each other. This is just one of the pieces of furniture for sale at the shop.

 Hew and Jeanette on dish duty.

 Children and youth having a great time playing outside the back of the church house.

 Mike Pauley doing dishes. The lady next to him is German, she was there with her husband (who doesn't really speak English) and I think 5 children. We are planning to visit them in October when we're in Germany; she's SO excited about that!! They're in Dunmore East for 5 weeks, older children staying with various church families so they can learn English.

 The woodwork workshop was transformed into the dining hall for the weekend.

 Carrie, looking very contemplative. She's so much fun!!