Ballykillaboy, Rochestown, Currabehy, Tinnascolly, Ballypickes, Ballinlaw, Ballygunner.

Well they’re all Irish localities and farms often take their names from them. I hesitate to describe them any further as my meager knowledge will surely get me into the crosshairs of a discussion. None the less most of these photo’s are associated with such names above.

You  see it goes like this; After Michael and Rachael had taken us to Ballykillaboy to drop off our bags they later whisked us off down to Ballinlaw where Patricia and Paddy had a welcome dinner ready for us.

On Friday we’re invited to Ballygunner for lunch but that was to give Rose the necessary carbo’s to later run a 5 mile race with Kathleen around the lanes of Ballyduff lower. We arrive early to a steady drizzle and the girls go in to register. Does not look too busy but closer to the 6:30 pm start time runners start emerging from cars and a little after 6:30 all 74 of them are off. You can see the start of the run here.

Saturday dawned nice & clear, a rarity. I needed some exercise and Rose had never been up Tory Hill. Someone had said it is 10 something round trip, I took this to be 10 Km so we took off at a brisk walking pace down the narrow lanes. 30 minutes later we turn at the crucial Rathlikeen turnoff and get closer to the hill itself. One last turn onto a gated mountain road and we start to circle the hill as we ascend. We reach the top after nearly 1 hr 30 minutes and the GPS says 4.7 miles making the round trip closer to 10 miles than 10 Km.

Dinner with Ann, PJ, Sally-Anne. Rose is dying to see the milking robot that is all the rage and we get a tour of the sheds. In brief the milking shed has a couple of gated pens where the cows get milked and each cow has an RFID transponder around their neck. They have been trained to come to the shed when they need to be milked and wait for a pen to free up and they go in. The “robot” knows who the cow is and proceeds to “find” the teats and milk them after which the cow is free to roam again. The robot does more than “milk” and monitors each cows health and a host of other data that comes with a system like this.

Sunday was picnic day organized by Patricia. As with most things here you organize them, ignore what the weather is doing and then hope for the best. It rained Sunday morning and started clearing around 1 pm just right for us. It was located at “Woodstock Gardens & Arboretum” near the town of Inistioge.

Cathy took us down to Woodstown beach where, at low tide, you can walk for miles and have a pint on your return.