The Ferry to Ireland with a Motorhome!

We’ve arrived in Ireland with our motorhome after taking a ferry across the Irish Sea from Fishguard in South Wales. Way hey! We’ve a month or so now to explore the country, and have decided to spend our time exploring the southern part of the Republic of Ireland. Everyone backs up what the guidebooks say: the Atlantic Coast is spectacular, so that’s where we’ll head.

Slowly though, the Sunday drive from Nottingham to Fishguard through the rain tired us out. Getting on a bit we are now! Although we didn’t hit any traffic, there were a few long stretches of 50mph imposed on the Welsh motorway to keep pollution down, and a decent couple of stretches of roadworks.

Two pit stops in the services slowed us down further, but we were getting tired and weren’t in a rush, as our ferry didn’t leave until the following day. The last time we were in Pembrokeshire about a year ago we spotted a park-up close to the port and beach, a large free and flat area being used by motorhomes before or after the ferry (N52.001726, W4.992906).

From a campsite spectacularly located on a cliff-top, we’d watched the ferry drift over the horizon in envy. For reasons we can’t recall we needed to head home, but not this time! That’s what drew us to the Fishguard ferry crossing, that feeling we’d missed out on the Irish adventure. In retrospect we might have headed to the port at Holyhead up in north Wales, probably at least an hour closer to where we live.

Anyway, we drove into the freebie spot, pulled on the handbrake, grabbed a cuppa and I headed for a short run on the coastal path to loosen up. The following morning after a great night’s sleep, Ju did the same as I slowly woke up with an iron-strong coffee. We’d booked the Stena Lines ferry through the Camping and Caravanning Club for their discount, which also meant we’d ‘flexi’ tickets and could amend the booking if needed. The tickets cost £204 for two adults and a 6m motorhome. This was for a daytime crossing, you can save about £20 or £30 by going overnight.

A text message advised us we could check in between 10:45 and 12:30, so we rolled across the road about 11am and checked in (no need for tickets or passports, just a form of ID which in our case wasn’t even checked nor our van searched). This is a wee port, it ain’t Dover, and Ju had joked about there being a shop after check-in. Rolling along to join the back of the short queue with a few other campers and cars, a chap appeared at our window and gave us two bags of smartie mini eggs. We suspected some sort of a catch, but there was none, he simply told us that there was indeed was a duty free shop, loos and a cafe. After that Ju was in there, checking out the shop which had some dubious ‘Coronation’ specials on – we’re not sure if King Charles is a big drinker of Strongbow.

The crossing itself was uneventful. I had a minor panic when we boarded the ferry and I spotted we were being parked on a slope inside the boat, a new one on me. Our handbrake isn’t the best, but the high-vis fella said he’d chock us and we left the van in gear. As usual on ferries the gas needed to be turned off but no-one asked us or checked. The fridge contents stayed nicely cold for the 3.5 hour crossing and, thank the gods, the Irish Sea was mirror-flat so Ju had no issues with seasickness.

I can’t review the boat’s on-board facilities, as we didn’t use any of ’em. As it was a daytime crossing we didn’t need a cabin, and we brought our own sandwiches, drinks and snacks. We spent some of our time out on deck watching Britain retreat into the distance and, a few hours later, Ireland come into view. Rosslare is again a small port, with a few other ferries docked or anchored at sea, ready for crossings to Britain, Spain and France but other than that nothing noteable to report.

Leaving the ferry was a bit odd. Usually at this point we switch to driving on the right, which suits us as we’ve a load of experience on that side of the road, and our van’s left hand drive. Not this time, Ireland drives on the left so I had to force myself to stay left. We’d also discovered I’d accidentally deleted the Ireland maps from our cheapie truck satnav, so were navigating with Organic Maps App on a phone. Most folks, including us, were waved through customs and not having a pooch meant we didn’t need to stop at the pet check-in area.

A single road climbed out of the port and into Ireland. Well, all of 3 miles into Ireland for us. We’d spied a pub stop at Kilrane on park4night, the Culleton’s Pub & Restaurant, and pulled into their car park (N52.241932, W6.356387). After getting a cheerful thumbs-up from the staff inside for an overnight stay, we watched a convoy of vintage tractors drive past, their drivers waving, wondering where they’d come from. The road only goes to the port, maybe they’d been on their jollies to Blighty. Then we positioned ourselves as far from the road as we could.

The pub grub was top quality but unfortunately we’re unable to bring you the mandatory ‘Just Arrived in Ireland Pint of Guinness Photo’, humblest apologies. Ju can’t abide the stuff and, horror of horrors, I’ve been on the wagon for years. Guinness, recognising this potentially-crippling loss in income, cleverly invented an alcohol-free version of the black stuff, called Guinness 0.0.

Guinness 0.0 is rather tasty, one of the better ‘AF’ beers, and a few pints don’t make me wish I were dead the following morning! The pub has 0.0 on draught, but had sold out, so Ju supped a Bulmers and I made do with coke. €45 later, we rolled out of the place and around the corner to our rolling home.

As the cars slowly left around us we sorted the satnav and did a load of planning for places to stay, drawing on Lonely Planet Ireland, the Motoroamer’s Guide to Ireland and a load of other bits and bobs of info we had around. A broken night’s kip followed as (a) lorries and cars rumbled past from 4am for the night ferries and (b) I was too daft to take up Ju’s offer of ear plugs.

The following morning, bleary-eyed, we commenced Operation Get a SIM Card. Being in the EU, most UK network operators severely limit the data available here and/or charge to use their SIMs outside the UK. As far as I know only Popit Mobile offer a 100GB pay-as-you-go SIM, allowing all the data to be used in the EU. I’d forgotten to order one though, so we needed to buy a local SIM.

After perusing the PAYG SIM Wiki, then searching around various places I’d hit upon getting a €15 Tesco Mobile unlimited data SIM. There happens to be a big old Tesco in Wexford up the road, so in we piled. They were very helpful, even trying to sort us out with an Irish Clubcard, but we spotted in the small print the unlimited SIM was actually limited to 100GB. Our chances of hitting that limit aren’t huge, but it was a bit irritating all the marketing stuff had UNLIMITED DATA in big letters followed a small *.

Follow the * to the teeny-weeny print below, and find they were a teeny-weeny bit economical with the truth. So, since the Tesco Mobile stand in the shop didn’t open for another 30 minutes, we did some shopping then nipped to a Three shop down the road and got a truly unlimited PAYG SIM for €20 for 28 days. No address/Irish bank needed, no need to set an APN in our router, and MiFi-type devices are supported, all good.

Wexford looked nice enough, but we’d a beach lined up to visit. Not just any beach, this one was used in the jaw-dropping opening D-Day scenes in Saving Private Ryan, which I’ve watched 873 times. The real Omaha Beach is of course in Normandy, but Spielberg apparently didn’t want to use it for various reasons, including the fact it’s been developed in the past 79 years, and to avoid the moral dilemma of filming a movie in a place thousands of men died fighting.

Curracloe Beach is a few miles north of Wexford and has free day parking for motorhomes (overnight parking is a no-no these days, N52.388460, W6.365286). The miles-long beach and dunes are unspoiled, beautiful and popular. We ambled around a bit trying and failing to spot the exact places each scene was filmed, before I pulled my running kit on for a jog up and down while Ju read and enjoyed the scenery.

Unable to stay at the beach parking, we’d found a well-reviewed aire in the village of Graiguenamanagh. Nope, we’ve not worked out how to pronounce it, but apparently the locals call is Graig, which works for us. It was another 40 mile drive, but the roads were pretty good, just this weird yellow-dotted-line thing proving a bit confusing.

We’ve seen something similar in Greece and Poland, with slower vehicles driving in this kind-of-inside-lane to let others overtake. I’ve just looked it up and yep, the lane “indicates a ‘hard shoulder’. It should only be used in the case of a breakdown or emergency, or if you are driving a slow moving vehicle, to allow faster traffic to overtake you if it’s safe to do so”. So now I know.

Right! I’ll leave it there, it’s been a long-old blog post already. We’re in a lovely spot at the aire here in Graig, but Ju’ll fill you in on it next time (N52.538794, W6.956572). I’ll just leave you with a few interesting bits and bobs we’ve spotted which remind us we’re not in the UK any more. Cheers, Jay