Kanga And Wombats Adventures

Day 8

We began our exploration of the south western part of Cork today, those amazing five peninsulas of land that reach out into the Atlantic Ocean like crooked witch’s fingers. Imagine your left hand. Today we explored Pinkie, or Mizen Head, and the Ring Finger, Sheep’s Head. Not necessarily to scale of course! Fingers to Heads I mean.

Mizen Head is the larger of the two, totally beautiful. From a relatively new Visitors Centre, various paths lead you to the lighthouse station, crossing a bridge spanning a spectacular chasm in the black folded rocks. A geologists dream.

The old lighthouse station has been turned into a museum, the likes of which have not been touched for donkeys. You can see the cobwebs growing before your eyes. Very quaint.

We double tracked back to have lunch at Crookhaven, a tiny village tucked away in a sheltered inlet, where Marconi spent considerable time perfecting his radio transmitting and experimenting with towers. He’d fallen in love with and married an Irish girl it seems, so he’d left his native Italy to be with her. She couldn’t handle his obsession though, and three kids and 19 years later, they divorced. Crab sandwiches and seafood chowder completely acceptable!

The smaller and narrower peninsula next was Ring Finger, or Sheep’s Head. Supposedly the quietest and least visited of all, we found it quite busy. A walkers paradise. After a slow 30km drive, the final extremely narrow winding road of about 10 kms leads you to a car park from where you have to walk the remaining 2kms to the tiny lighthouse at the end. It was a very hot day, and although the track was mostly flat, the steep parts proved challenging. The views were pretty stunning though!

Totally stuffed, we journeyed on to our accommodation at Bantry Bay, an absolute stunner. Definitely took Airbnb to a higher level. Wish we were staying longer. A queen bed at last! This is the view from ‘Seafinn’.