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
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