Day 4: Turn Right... Stay Left...

At the Enterprise lot, Kristy and I thanked the employees before getting into the spotless Tiida. No problems getting into the right position as we both consciously told ourselves to not look foolish in front of the Enterprise employees. In the car, I adjusted the mirrors, which were nearly perfectly lined up to begin with. I looked around, favoring the right side mirror to determine the distance between the car and the building. Everything seemed in line, almost too easy. I put the car in gear (thank God we got an automatic!!) and crept towards the street.

The approach was good. I felt proud about that. Then, Kristy explained to me that I was actually on the right side of the driveway. Okay, so not so good, but still nothing too bad. I look both ways for traffic and ready myself to make a left turn. The turn was smooth, until Kristy "quietly", "calmly" and "coolly" explained to me that I was turning into oncoming traffic and that I perhaps ought to consider moving left into the lane. During her speech traffic began to come towards us, so I decided that Kristy's suggestion was valid and "guided" the car "gently" into the left lane. Kristy, whose heart apparently stopped, made some frightened noises as I drove into the left lane and, awkwardly, into the traffic circle that came up on us too quickly. I took the first left, feeling rather confident that this was the direction we desired. That confidence faded as we approached a security checkpoint. The gentleman kindly asked us where we were headed and gave us directions. It turned out, I took the wrong turn off of the traffic circle.

As I made a Y-turn that looked more like a *-turn, Kristy began to breathe again. So that was good. We went back towards the M-50, which is what the Irish call a Dual Carriageway (a four lane divided highway). We went through four or five roundabouts and eventually got onto the M-50. With so many roundabouts in succession, we were lucky that the direction to the M-50 was labeled so well; otherwise, there is no way we would not have found it.

On the M-50, driving was pretty simple. The speed limit was 120 km/hr and eventually we got up to speed. We stayed in the left lane and got passed by quite a few cars, but it was a nice drive. Our destination was County Cork, so we had to get off of the M-50 after an hour and we took the N-7 to the M-7. These were regional highways similar to the M-50. The Irish highway system seemed quite nice and gave us a false sense of security.

Kristy and I continued through Kildare and other small Irish villages and towns. Each place was distinctly Irish, but had unique features and businesses. As Kristy and I got more comfortable with the roads, we began to talk about possible destinations. Before we left for Ireland, we decided (upon some advice) not to book hotels for our trip outside of Dublin. It was a great decision and was liberating to know that we could go wherever we wanted to for the rest of the trip. We decided to go to the Old Midleton Distillery in Midleton (a small village outside of Cork City). Kristy used the Atlas and decided on a route to take: R639 to R626. These were smaller roads and we began to understand what Irish country roads were like. They were two-lane winding roads and the lanes were maybe 1-foot larger than the car. Also, the speed limits were 100 km/hr. Needless to say , we pulled over a lot and let people pass us as we traveled along, white-knuckled, at a respectable 50 km/hr. I never did get the car up to the speed limit in County Cork, which had, by far, the most unnerving roads out of anywhere we traveled.

We got to Midleton and found the Jameson Distillery. We pulled into a parking space and walked in to find nobody at the reception desk. We rang the bell and an employee came out and explained that they were still on their Christmas schedule until the next day and we missed the last tour. Being Friday, January 2nd, we had no idea that they would not be on their posted schedule. Anyways, we got to look around the tasting room, gift shop and interactive lobby which gives you a virtual tour of the distillery (we came for a tour and I got one!). It was about 4:00 PM when we left and dusk was already upon us.

We decided to get to Cork and see if the famous Market would be open. The people at the distillery gave us directions and said it should take about 15-minutes. At our speeds, however, we drove into Cork City after about 40-minutes of driving. It was beginning to get quite dark and Cork was not what Kristy was expecting.

Cork was an industrial city and we drove through the docks and headed towards the downtown area. However, during the fifth or sixth roundabout , I missed the exit and we drove up a mountainside without a place to turn around. So, we continued along and discovered the highway to Bandon, a place of interest we were going to visit the next day. After about 15-minutes, Kristy and I were out of Cork City and headed towards the small village of Bandon.

The drive to Bandon was a bit unnerving since night had fully emerged, making it very difficult to see the lines in the road, which wound around and around. Also, with such tight lanes and prickly bushes overgrowing the entire left side of the road, which at times covered the old stone walls, both of our nerves took a beating. Additionally, the left edge of the road sometimes had a 1-foot shoulder and other times part of the lane itself dropped into a ditch about 8-inches deep (we called them ravines or gullies at varying times during our trip).

We arrived in Bandon and noted the sheer amount of traffic and people walking around. It was about 5:00 PM and apparently was the time to be out. We noticed this in all of the places we stopped. Between 5:00 and 7:00 PM, there were loads of people and cars all around the small towns.

We drove down the main street and found a church lot with many cars parked in it. So we parked the car, bid it adieu, and began walking along the street to look for a place to stay the night. I had the name of the hotel that was Michael Collins' last stop before being ambushed and assassinated. We walked along and did not find it, but stumbled into a hotel that I had looked up online. We went into the nice lobby and I saw the famous last picture of Collins framed above the reception desk. Here is the picture:


It turned out that I had the name of the hotel wrong and we were at the hotel where Michael Collins drank his last pint and where the last picture of him was taken. Alright, so we inquire about rooms and book one for the night. They warned us about the noise from the nightclub next door, but gave us the quietest room that they had. Kristy and I went up to the room and loved the irony of it all. Amazingly, in the room, there was a folder about the hotel that included a biography of Michael Collins. It was awesome. However, it was getting late, so we moved the car to a closer lot and brought our luggage to the room. Without an elevator, I lugged both of our bags up the stairs and, as I was now a pro at turning on lights and individual outlets, we were up and running quickly.

Our next quest, find somewhere to eat dinner in Bandon...