Celebrating the Prodigal's Return

We were all very happy when our minder returned and we were all together again. We went out for a special meal to celebrate. We'd picked somewhere that we'd heard was good, and are pleased to report it was much more than good, it was stunning.

So where is the place to go if you ever find yourself near the Cork/Kerry border? The place to go is Josie's restuarant which is at Lakeview House, in a remote spot overlooking the delightful Glanmore Lake.

We had a warm welcome as we arrived and were taken to a cosy table right by the window so we could look out over the gardens, lake and mountains.

One of our minders started with seafood chowder and when the bowl came it looked lovely, and was big enough for Yorkie to swim in. It tasted as good as it looked, and Yorkie even abandoned his usual pirana devouring approach to food, and decided to savour it, so as to make it last as long as it could.

In between courses we had a chance to look out the window and admire the view ...

... it was very special. It was just a shame we were there just after the longest day so didn't get a chance to see the sun setting over the mountains, but there again, as it was so light, we could enjoy the view for the whole of our meal.

The main course was a lovely piece of salmon with beautifully cooked potatoes and vegetables. As salmon is one of a bear's favourite foods, what more can we say ... other than the Eves pudding we had was desert was also most spendid.

However good the meal was, it was even better to have our minder back. Mind you, if we are every back in the area - which we hope to be - Josie's will be one of the first places we head to.

Lots of love, Patrick and co xxx

All Very Irish

We enjoyed our time at Derreen, and, while we were there, I took one of our official 'bears on holiday' snaps for the Bears Unlimited company album. What a fine trio of bears, even though George is a adopting the Victorian father pose. Rosa and Yorkie hasten to add that they're not his children.

Of course, with one of our minders going away, we had a couple of runs, to and from Cork airport, to do. We made the most of the travelling and had a couple of stops off, to see places and things of interest.

One was Cromwell's bridge in the town of Kenmare, which you see, along with us, in our next photo.  

 

It was a very high bridge for such a small river, and we wondered what tall vessels had travelled under it in the past. The sides were actually a lot steeper than they look and, as it was drizzling while we were there, the stones were very slippery. We felt we would have needed a climbing rope to safely cross the bridge, so we didn't. The packhorses who used to use it is times past, must have been surer footed than us.

The bridge quite intrigued us, so we consulted the town trail that Tourist Information had kindly given us to find our more about it. We learned that, even though it was called Cromwell's bridge. Cromwell himself had never been to this part of Ireland. The name seems to have originated from the Irish word for moustache, and we have to agree that the bridge is more than a little moustache shaped.

Moving on, unlike the rest of my Bears Unlimited companions, I, Patrick, being Irish born and bred was brought up as a good Catholic bear. And so, when I saw a sign to a holy well in the corner of a layby, I felt drawn to investigate, taking the others with me. 

We walked through wood for several minutes, and we were beginning to think we would never find it,when we came across a slate indicating the entrance.

  

We went through a rickety iron gate, and then ... we were very disappointed. There was a sludgy puddle, a bare light bulb and a few rather tacky offerings and some ornamental dolls which rather gave me the creeps. It was a bit of an experience and it did serve to make me realise that I'm not missing too much of my past.

We didn't linger as we were eager to go and pick up our minder.

Lots of love Patrick and friends xxx

How Green is Derreen

Shortly after our trip to Bere island, one of our minders had to return to England for 24 hours for a pre arranged appointment. We therefore decided we would make a really great effort to give our remaining minder a good time.

There was one attraction right on our doorstep that we had ignored so far, and decided that now was the time to put that right. And so, we all went off to the Derreen gardens, on the edge of Lauragh, for a good look round.

The gardens gave us ninety acres of woodland glade to explore. The setting was a sheltered inlet amidst the splendid setting of wild and majestic mountains, and you can see just how stunning the location was, from our next picture.

The view from the gardens was quite different  to the reverse view of the gardens looking inland from the shore. The overall impression was that of a subtropical jungle of luxuriant vegetation. You would hardly have known you were in Ireland - would you have guessed from the following shot showing some of the spectacular tree ferns? ...



There wasn't much flowering when we were there, but there was plenty of plant variety to keep us interested. We followed paths meandering through groves of bamboo, towering eucalyptus, rhodedendrons and a variety of conifers, as well as the tree ferns, until they would emerge at a grassy lawn, a shoreside boathouse, a seat with a view or some other interesting feature.

In one rather jungly area we met another otter. Remember us telling you recently about the one we'd spied swimming from the cottage? This one didn't look as if he was about to go swimming, in fact he didn't look as if he'd been anywhere for a while ...

... then, as we got close for our photo, we realised it wasn't an otter at all, just an otter shaped piece of moss covered wood.

What a striking resemblance though! What do you think?

Lots of love, Patrick and furry friends xxx

We Feel at Home

There isn't actually a lot to do on Bere/Bear Island unless you like walking or cycling, which fortunately we do. This is actually a good thing, as it keeps the island quiet and unspoilt, just as we like it.

As you can see from our next picture, it was only a short hop from the ferry port to pick up both the Beara Way walking route and the Beara Way cycling route.

The walking route certaintly goes to town on this, its namesake island. There are 2 loops at either end of the island and we did the whole of the longer one at the east of the island. A very fine walk it was too.

Because the ferry has a long elevenses break, the crossing we took was a lunchtime one (it wouldn't have been a proper holiday if we'd had to get up early to catch an earlier crossing. This meant that we hadn't walked very far before we all started to think 'what's in my lunchbox?'

We found a lovely sunny spot, with a great view over the sea to the mainland, to check out what was in our lunchboxes. Personally I was a lot more excited about the sandwiches I found in my lunchbox than about the 2 small bears who had taken up residence inside. 

After lunch we made great progress on our island promenade and visited the lighthouse and climbed the first of several hills. We were always in sight of one of these Beara Way route markers so we could relax and enjoy the scenery without having to keep a nose stuck in a map. In case you're wondering, the minder's hand getting ready to catch me, was not due to me being unsteady because of lunchtime Guinness drinking, but because there was a brisk breeze blowing.

After some wild and hilly walking the path took us back to the harbour along a quiet country road. If you look back to our first picture, you'll see that the emblem of the Beara Peninsula (more than just Bere Island) is a fushia. it was the perfect choice, as everywhere we went, the hedgerows were full of fuschias and honeysuckle. Here I am admiring a typical roadside hedge of fushia, that would go on for what seemed like miles. It was rather lovely and gave us the impression of being somewhere very temperate, tropical even.

We had planned our walk round Bear(a) Island perfectly, so we had enough time for a glass of Murphy's before re-embarking on the ferry returning to Sli na Mara for a relaxing evening.

Lots of love Patrick and B.U. friends xxx

This Time it's for Real

It seems ages ago that we were telling you about looking across to Bear Island and anticipating our visit. I did say at the time that I was whetting the appetite of my friends with the view, and they would have to wait a while for the visit to take place.

However, I couldn't keep them waiting for ever, and I wouldn't be that cruel anyway. And so, as our first weekend in Ireland came round, it was back to Castletownbeare, not just to watch the ferry, but actually to get on it, as foot passengers of course - the bearmobile had the day off on the quayside.

Gilbert feels the cold a bit - and boat trips are usually rather windy affairs - so he used a minder's rucksack as a sleeping bag and reserved us some seats in the cabin, while the rest of us took a short stroll round the deck (it wasn't very big) before seeking a vantage point on the life ring. Don't get me wrong, this didn't indicate that we were worried about the crossing, just that it was dry place to sit. In any event, with a boat name of Sancta Maria, what harm could come to us?

As the car deck filled with the two cars we were taking (there was possibly room for 4) we were amused to notice shop assistants from the nearby supermarket coming on board with bags of shopping, which they deposited on the car deck, as you see below. We found this a quite novel alternative to the more usual Tescos home delivery.

We spent longer waiting to set sail, than we did sailing. In just a matter of minutes we were putting into the harbour at Beara island. Perhaps the interesting fact that, during WW1, the passage of water we were crossing was so full of anchored battleships, that it is said it was possible to cross from mainland to island on boat decks without getting your feet wet, indicates to you that the distance wasn't that far.

We look forward to showing you the delights of the island next time.

Lots of love Patrick and friends xxx

Snail on the Trail

It was a very educational walk that we were on. At the start we had learnt all about the use of heather as a very weatherproof roofing material, on top of that reconstructed farm worker's cottage from the last century. Now we got to appreciate what a fine bedding material it makes.

Traditionally rocks are good places to rest, as they get you off the damp ground and give you an elevated view. However, they are normally a bit hard. Not so when they have a really thick hat of heather on the top, such as this one.

As we climbed on top for a rest, the heather was so thick and springy that we sank right into it, which is why you'll have to look hard to see us in our next picture.

The heather bed was so warm and comfortable that it was hard to stay awake. An afternoon nap beckoned, or it would have done, if 2 minders hadn't threatened to leave without us.

We didn't regret being summoned to complete the yellow trail though, as it had a delightful finish, with the path running bedside a stream with water gardens alongside. Someone had put a lot of work into cultivating the gardens and they were every bit as good a place to rest by as that heather bed.

Not that we wanted to rest now, as there were too many interesting finds, just like this one.

What a marvellous snail he was, and he fitted into his surroundings so well. He seemed very contented, but then he was living in a rather delightful spot.

There was one thing guaranteed to draw us away from the riverside walk and that was the promise of a cream tea at the tea rooms. Do you need to ask whether it was a good cream tea? Well just look at Rosa for the answer ...

... it was so good it completely blew her away.

We thoroughly recommend a visit to Gleninchaquin Park if you're ever in the area.

Lots of love Patrick, George, Yorkie & Rosa xxx

We Choose Yellow

Sorry for the recent blog silence, but we've all been off having a wonderful time at the Greenbelt arts festival. We've reported from Greenbelt several times, so many of you will know how special Greenbelt is to us.

But back to Ireland, and more specifically the beautiful Gleninchaquin Park. As we said last time, there are a number of waymarked trails to choose from, and we chose the yellow one, a fairly high level 4 hour route.

But first we had to get to the start, and this involved a heart pumping climb which we thought would never end.

We did get a chance to recover our breath when we reached this lovely lake, which provided not only something beatiful to look at, but also a nice, big, flat rock to rest on.

It was only a temporary rest though, as our path continued to climb, until we got almost to the height of the hill tops you see at the back of the photo.

At this point we reached the official start of the yellow walk; up til now we'd been following markers for the shorter red route, which, at the point it met the yellow route, was about to descend. Despite the hard climb, we were by no means ready to go back yet, so it was full steam ahead on the yellow route.

As you can see from the sign, at this point we were already 1 hour into our walk, with just 3 hours left to go.

You will also see, from this photo, and our next one, that we had all this lovely scenery almost all to ourselves. There were only 2 other people on the route while we were there.

We were quite reliant on the yellow paint blob markers on the rocks, as there wasn't really a path on the ground. However, as there was always a yellow blob in sight we weren't in any real danger of getting lost.

Our way undulated a fair bit, but the hard climbing was over. We stopped for lunch at a spot which gave us a great view over the terrain we had just walked ...

... at the back of the photo you can see the lake we'd rested at before walking all along the ridge to the left of the picture.

The chaps were very pleased with me for showing them that there are some good walking opportunities in Ireland if you know where to look. And it wasn't over yet; we were only half way round.

Back soon,

Lots of love Patrick & friends xxx