Goodbye Ireland, Hello Devon

We got up on Sunday morning to a bright and sunny day, the best we’ve seen since arriving in Ireland. So nice that we decided to spend some time sitting in the beautiful garden at the Coach House and having another coffee/tea. Being “touristed-out”, we thought that relaxation and a nice drive to the ferry would be the best course to take. The drive through the countryside took us to a small ferry at East Passage across the Suir River and then on to the ferry terminal at Rossalare (we only got lost twice).



After an uneventful two-hour crossing, we embarked on a five-hour drive on mostly motorways to Devon. On the way, we pulled into a service area for a bite to eat. The restaurant was a Burger King! And the concept of “fast food” has escaped them; it took a half hour to get our burgers.

The past couple of days have been sunny and clear, something of a rarity in Ireland according to our B&B host. We have noticed quite a few painful-looking sunburns among the fair-skinned folks we’ve encountered today.

The drive to Devon took us on the A40, A48, M4, M79, M5 and A38 motorways. Then it was local roads, each one getting narrower until be were on a single track, the narrowest we’ve driven so far, so narrow that our car filled the entire road. Fortunately we did not encounter any cars coming the other way. We took a main A road to Kingsbridge, then A279 through West Charleton and East Charleton to Frogmore and unnamed roads through Sherford to Stancombe where we arrived at our Honeysuckle Cottage at Stancombe Manor. The Manor is a set of old stone cottages that have been refurbished into nice modern vacation homes. Since it was after 11:00 PM when we arrived, we went right to bed. We’ll explore tomorrow.