Ireland day 1474. Saturday 11 October 2025- To Dingle

Today’s summary	Drove down with our friends (in two cars) to our cottage in Dingle from Malahide, stopping at Tesco Swords for the week’s provisions along the way. Stopped at the Obama Plaza on the M7 for lunch then arrived at the cottage about 5:30pm. Dinner wine and chat in the sitting room, admiring the views over Mt Brandon
Today’s weather	Overcast and dry all day, with some sun in Dingle. Clear evening. Almost no wind. Appx 11c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (No GPX today)

Commentary

Our friends stayed with us overnight in Malahide and, apart from yet more rail engineering works at about 1am, I think we all probably slept reasonably well. We were up by 8am anyway, teas and coffees in hand, and ready for a light breakfast soon afterwards. Eventually, with all the last bits of packing done, the remains of breakfast cleared away, and ablutions done, we set off in our two cars to drive west.

Actually, we didn’t get very far, before we arrived at Swords and had to call in at Tesco to collect provisions for the week. As we are staying in a fairly remote part of the Dingle peninsula, County Kerry, it’s likely that there won’t be many nearby shops, so that required some careful forethought to plan out exactly what we might want for breakfast in a week’s time. Eventually though we got everything and set off properly at around noon.

It was a very straightforward journey, and we paused midway at the Obama Plaza services on the M7, to get lunch. We also called in briefly in Castlegregory to fill up with petrol. Finally, we pitched up in our cottage in Brandon village at around 5:30. We briefly met our landlady (who lives over the hill), had a quick guided tour of the cottage, and finally took possession of our new domain.

Initial impressions are good – lots of space, clean and warm. And the views are stunning! The Brandon mountains in the evening light were absolutely spectacular. With a good weather forecast, hopefully we will be able to get out there and do some proper exploring over the next few days.

Time to go now. Dinner is calling and I’m starving! Roll on Dingling!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


At the Obama Plaza this lunchtime. Tripping the light fantastic!	Checking out the exhibition at the service centre celebrating President Obama’s visit to his forebears’ Offaly homeland in 2011

Curious visitor at the service centre – an ancient Daimler	Our home for the next week.



Val prepared a wonderful Kerrigans’ chicken stir fry for dinner. Quick, tasty and nutritious. And especially good with a nice bottle of red wine