The Penguin Leaves Wales Tomorrow and Heads to Ireland

This was our road we travelled on.

Today we woke up to pounding rain on the west coast of Wales. We had a three hour drive north to Holyhead, where we will take the ferry to Dublin tomorrow.

Fortunately the rain stopped as soon as we got underway and we enjoyed the Welsh mountains
and seaside glory on the way to this ferry port.

I passed one second hand book shop on the way but sadly it was closed. It looked interesting. So on we went.

We stopped for lunch in a busy pub. We had a "squealer" next to us. (What we call those toddlers who squeal at the top of their voice and the parents ignore.)  So between bites of food we had this cacophony of noise piercing our heads. We ate and fled the scene of the noise.

Part of the port in Holyhead.
We needed a walk after severalhours in the car.

We didn't make too many missed turns. We have a joke going that if Google tells us a destination is only two hours, we say, "Good, we'll be there in four hours." That is almost always true though we are getting better.


We need to stop having arguments with our GPS lady we dubbed Beverly.  We lose our temper with her and sometimes just hit the 'off' button when we turn a corner we are sure is the correct direction and she starts going on about "Recalculating- Recalculating". We have even sworn at her once or twice. We wonder why she uses the word "Please" so often but sounds so grumpy when we make a mistake. It is scary.




We turn in Big Bertha tomorrow. We were supposed to have had a small Opal economy car but the guy handed us keys to a large Fiat 500 SUV at Heathrow. We did not argue. In Ireland we are to have a tiny VW Polo and are wondering where we will put everything.

Maybe he'll be nice and upgrade us too. We have been calling the big diesel Fiat Big Bertha because she makes so much noise whenever we head off in first gear.


I am not grinding the gears nearly so much these days.

The west coast of Wales is very beautiful. Our road had mountains to the east and open sea to the west. It reminds me a lot of Tasmania. The weather seems similar also. But it is also different.

The Penguin loves the seaside.

I have put a few photos of this beautiful country that we saw today.  I hope we find more bookstores in Ireland but I am not holding my breath. Many of them are either hidden or just plain gone.

The Penguin is packed and ready for another two weeks of adventure.