Cork...

Now in Cork after having spent the night by the sea in Dungarvan. It's a charming little town with a beautiful bay which is full of wading birds - curlew, dunlin, oystercatchers, turnstones, a few egrets, and brent geese in the winter.

(I'd spent the previous night in my hammock by near a factory called Genzyme in Waterford. It seems manufacturing drugs is a big thing here.)

I'd imagined that hitching in Ireland was dead easy: after all, the Irish have a reputation for being open and hospitable. I don't know if it's me, or if it's because buses are cheap here, but I've found it difficult - I've had to wait far longer than I would in the UK. One driver told me that it's due to the boom of the last ten years, which has made people more affluent and changed atttudes. I don't know. Having said that, the lifts have been very friendly and chatty, and have more often than not gone out of their way to drop me somewhere convenient.

Next destination: Blarney, so I can kiss the Blarney Stone.

The swallows are gathering on the wires, ready to leave...