Schull and Mizen Head, Wild Atlantic Way, Ireland

Once we’d de-frazzled after an over-active walking and driving day yesterday, we enjoyed a quiet stay at Red Strand Beach. There’s a mobile sauna there a couple of days a week, but not when we were there, we spotted the barrel-shaped wagon at someone’s house as we drove past drive today. Thank to Kat (from Wandering Bird) for this video showing the beach, we decided to stay there after watching it.

We couldn’t spot any obvious hiking paths, so after a brief wander about on the beach we spent our time blogging (Ju) and failing to photograph gannets endlessly dive-bombing the sea (me). A couple arrived in a small camper, getting their swimmers on and heading out for a few frigid minutes in the sea. “It’s like 5 coffees hitting you at once”, the lass told me as they warmed up in dry robes afterwards.

Later, at dusk, another chap arrived in his car, threw most of his clothes off on the beach and kind of danced about in the froth before retreating to his car. We’ve been watching youtubers Kinging It the past few months, and have stared in wonder at their ice-water-submersion antics. None of this inspired either of us to get into the sea, and we’ve got a hot shower in here!

Around 11pm the traffic stopped, and we enjoyed a quiet night’s sleep, waking and breakfasting to wonderful views of the beach and sea. The kind of views it’s very hard to get from a campsite, and this spot was free. We’ve absolutely nothing against campsites, and we use them a lot in the UK and across Europe. But for some reason (winter storms maybe?) there don’t seem to be many (any?) of them up against the coast down here in West Cork? Thankfully we’ve two loo cassettes should we need them (we got a fresh-up kit), which will last us maybe 10 days, so plenty of time to find a proper emptying point.

Learning a lesson from yesterday, we agreed between us to skip some sections of the Wild Atlantic Way today, to make the driving easier. The road’s are by no means bad, they’re just a bit tight in places and with high hedges obscuring the view, it’s not ideal in a left hand drive motorhome, especially left bends which have poor visibility for me. We feel a bit bad driving past the little wavy blue and white signs pointing off down side roads, knowing we’re missing scenic drives, but not that bad.

But hey, we never had a target to do the entire 1,500 miles of the WAW, we’re just here to get a sample of Ireland. The WAW isn’t a single route either, but has tons of loops and out-and-backs. We’ve come across articles about motorhomers doing the whole thing in three weeks, which sounds very impressive to us. We’d normally spend maybe two months driving that distance on these kinds of road.

Even avoiding some scenic bits, the fast-and-wide N71 has long sections of rough and wallowing surface which had us both feeling queasy. The uprated springs we had fitted a few years back probably helped us avoid bottoming out the suspension a time or two, but we found ourselves letting out ‘ahhhhhs’ as we hit smoother tarmac. I guess we didn’t really expect anything other than narrow and rough-surfaced roads, as that’s exactly what we have in rural UK. We just need to get back into the swing of it I think, after quite a long layoff from van driving.

Anyway, we dropped back onto the WAW, or it came back to find us, around Skibbereen. The Lonely Planet didn’t have much to say about Skibb to tempt us to stop, so we rolled on to the fishing/yachting/artist port town of Schull (pronounced skull).

On arrival we had a small wrestle with our satnav over the location of the only car park in town without height barriers, before turning it off and finding it ourselves, located behind the Centra supermarket. Half of the parking area was dug up, a huge hole in the bedrock, but we found a spot big enough and set off for an amble around.

We weren’t there long, walking a km or two along past the small port, watching a chap heaving a couple of huge rusting metal chains into the boot of his car. Out onto the coastal path, we saw a dingy being sailed around in the shallow sea and did a bit of rock pooling, nothing too dramatic folks! Schull seemed a lovely, easy-going seaside community though. The Centra had photos of the winners of the past few year’s local triathlon and a message chalked up that a purse had been found on the quayside.

Other than Centra’s hot food counter there wasn’t much to hold us, so once we’d eaten we rolled off back along the WAW towards Mizen Head. On the smaller R roads now, but with practically no-one else sharing the road, we had an easy drive with increasingly impressive views of coastline, empty beaches and rugged farmland.

Eventually we found ourselves here, in the large sloping car park for the Mizen Head Visitor’s centre (N51.452003, W9.809363). We parked up behind a few other cars, motorhomes and campers, with stunning views out across the rough green sea below, lowering our steady legs to fend off the worse effects of the buffeting wind.

The peninsular we’re on juts right out in the Atlantic. The Gulf Stream carries warmer currents around the southern edge of Ireland and huge storms hammer the place in winter. It feels distant from the pace of life we’re used to, even the relatively sedate one Ju and I live these days.

I love locations like this. I love the amazing views (of course) and the fact I can make a coffee, upload a blog post, whale-watch and have a shower in such a raw landscape. The locals have erected height barriers at a couple of the viewpoints on the way, but are happy for motorhomes to stay overnight here. We’re at the end of a long dead-end road. There are no houses, so I guess no-one to upset.

There’s a visitor’s centre to access the Signal Station located around the corner on rocky promontory, which you get to across an impressive 45m-high footbridge. It’s been closed off the past three days for work to be done extending the visitor’s centre, so we walked on the rough path above it to get views out across the station and cliffs. It re-opens tomorrow, so we’ll pay to go in and look around, it seems a good exchange for a free night in a spot we’re sure to remember.

After walking to get the views we’ve both run a few miles back along the road, showered, eaten, hid from the intermittent rain (I’m currently being slow-cooked by the sun through the windscreen) and peered out to sea. The incredible Fastnet lighthouse (built on a speck of rock in the high seas) is just visible in the distance, and we’ve been using binoculars to scan the huge ocean for dolphins and whales. Nothing spotted so far, but it’s very comfortable sat here in the cab peering out across the wide-open rolling seas.

Updated the following morning, after a blustery night’s sleep in the car park. We woke to perfect weather, blue skies lighting up the sea below us. The Signal Station doesn’t open until 10:30am, so we ate and wrote while we waited. As soon as it hit 10:25, we were off down the hill, waiting for the staff to open up.

Was it worth the €7:50 each? Oh yes. There’s a ton of information in the visitor’s centre and across the bridge in the signal station itself. But the real star off the show is the landscape. It’s epic. There are steps, ramps and platforms built all over the place, and we headed to all of them. If you’re able-bodied, they all worth it. We were in there for two hours and could have stared at the raging seas, seal colony and contorted cliff faces for longer.

I’ll let the pictures do the talking:

Cheers, Jay