A few days ago I started to realise that my days in Ireland are numbered. I should be in France the 2nd of August, that leaves about 6 days from now. Donegal, Galway, Dingle and Killarney are mentioned so many times by people I met that I want at least to have a quick visit to those places. One thing I am sure of: I will get back here. If I have visited these places, next time I can divide my time (even) better. This means I have to pass a lot of great places and I have to make some distance each day. And that is hard...
So yesterday evening I did go to to fortress. To bad the cloud was filled with pieces of clouds. Not so much, with the sun high in the sky you would have had plenty of sunshine. But in order to get the best possible pictures, the sun must be low. In that case the intensity is lower, the colour becomes red and the angle of illumination gets better. But if there are some clouds, these can block it all.
Maybe a picture explains it better. During the day, the clouds don't cause a lot of problems. But the sunrays are white and drop on top of everything. This doesn't give spectaculair photo's (left). At sunset (or midsummer-nights as last year in Sweden and Norway), the picture on the right applies. The sunrays hit the object at a steep angle, bringing out the surfaces. Also the colour of the light has turned to red. But a number of small clouds are now capable of completly blocking all direct sunlight.
So the end is that I did get some pictures (the view on that place is magnificent), but not the pictures that would have been possible. But to get back to the site itself. It is great, you should go there. There is an old fortress build on one of the highest hills in the area. You can see for miles in any direction. Including a great view over (London)Derry. It closes at night so around 21:00 your kindly asked to leave (or park your car downhill).
So I had to leave and put some distance between my overnight places. Since I can not drive 5km without saying oh&ah and stop to see the sights and make some photo's, I thought it would be best to drive at night. A great experience! Today I saw all the spots I passed. It was a good thing that it was dark. It would have taken a week to do it in daylight.
The overnight photo. It was dark so I could not find anything better. And I still liked to go to Tory-island.
But I got to Meenlaragh in time to get the ferry from 11:30 towards Tory-island. A very indepent island. They don't pay taxes and even have their own king. What attracted me most were the cliffs.
Loading the passenger ferry towards the island. There are living only 250 people and they get 3 of such boatloads with visitors each day.
The reason for me to go: The cliffs. I even saw puffins there, one thing I missed in Iceland.
For anybody ever going to visit Tory-island. When you enter the port, walk right towards the cliffs. Just before the building with the 2 windmills you should turn left. There is a path just in front of this building. This leads to the 'back' of the island. When you take this path, you can walk alongside the cliffs until the end of the Island.
There were a lot of Irish visitors. Music and dancing is a big part of their culture (but if you are reading this, you already knew). In a social centre on the island, the king was playing music (you can see him in the back), sometimes other people also sang or played an instrument. And of course there was folk-dancing. Some nice people I met even learned me one of them :). Yes, I danced in Ireland!
Not only people were on the ferry. It was also used to transport small items.
And where am I now?? I am at a spot with a great view to the west. The sky was alomst empty and I hoped to make a few nice sunset pictures. To bad the the sky over the sea was filled with rain. So again no-go. I will spend the night here, it is not the greatest spot (next to a road), but chances of finding a better one are small. About the photodata. I can no longer keep them in html, notepad is to limited. So I changed to excel. I have now a total of 17 films (each 36 exposures). I shoot an average of one roll a day, so I expect 7 more + 3 for France. That will be about 30 films... That are 1000 photo's. That's also 500 euro... But if only 10% are great pictures. Then it will be worth it!
