Things are not as obvious here in Ireland as Google Maps would have you believe. We crossed a charming one-lane stone bridge looking for today’s parkup and honestly, before I was ready I had to pivot Escape Velocity sharply right at a fish and chip shop onto a tiny alley which was unfortunately blocked by stylishly turned out young women and gents. As they reluctantly sauntered out of the way I couldn’t help but notice that many of the women had the same flowing cocktail dress on. I’m no judge but they seemed to be a little over-dressed for the afternoon and was it possible we were witnessing a remarkably awkward coincidence? Or was it a gaggle of bridemaids out for a smoke break? I vote for smoking bridesmaids.
Suddenly they all disappeared only to return in a remarkably short amount of time, and I’m going to guess here, post ceremony with bride in tow, for a rather longish photo session with three photographers: a young female to do the candids, a middle aged man to doggedly capture the mandatory familial combinations, and the old man with that all-important very long slimming lens who had to set up beside the RVs — including now us — in the parkup to do the top tier portraits. That long lens can only help. When the wedding party was released they hopped into odd looking, incredibly noisy little hot rod econo-boxes.
And with that, sleepy Cunshendun’s entertainment was over for the day. We strolled across the old stone bridge through the picturesque town.
In the morning we decided to take our personal entertainment into our own hands and hike over to the caves rumored to be in the area.
On the way we ran into Johann, Cunshendun’s grumpy looking bronze memorial to the last of countless goats culled during the terrible outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 2001.
It’s true that it wasn’t far but the beach was deep with what I imagine are millions of those rounded golf ball sized stones that are the devil itself to walk on.
Of course several scenes used in The Game of Thrones were shot in these caves, including that creepy shadow birth of Melisandre’s. Yes, it’s on the GoT bus tour.
We came to Cushendun for the nice parkup and the caves were a bonus, but the open road calls Escape Velocity.