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I awoke in the morning to the sound of someone having a shower. But why were they doing this in the dorm? No, it wasn't a shower, it was raining. Either that or we were at 10,000 metres and surrounded by cloud.

The ferry crossing back to Baltimore was pretty rough, I found leaning over the rail helped, you get the picture! When we reached Skibbereen it was still raining so we went in to Fields teashop which was connected to a supermarket. Alan got pretty excited when he saw Carol Vorderman with her children in the supermarket. Bert and Trevor then had a sudden need to buy things which were available in the supermarket too so that left me on my own with a large pot of tea.
When the celebrity watchers returned we trudged out in to the street and navigated a surprisingly hilly N71 North to Bantry. I think there may have been views at the summit but they were lost to us in the general mist / cloud thing that was going on.
Bert and I did the shopping here and of course we hit a tea room again. Eventually we had to push on but the rain had topped by the time we reached Murphy's Independent Hostel, Glengarriff.

When we arrived we had all looked at each other, no one said it but we all thought 'Oh no!' The place was like a dump, no really I mean it. Old fridges and bicycles lying around rusting, rotting fruit in wooden boxes. If the outside of the hostel was like this then what would the inside be like? As it happens the inside was much better, not the cleanest place we've been but acceptable. Just don't look out the windows and you're OK.
Bert and I cooked. The starter was celery soup with warm bread then the main course, Irish stew with home made  dumplings and new potatoes. To finish muffins with custard and the whole meal washed down with Guinness.

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The day dawned breezy but sunny and warm. We had quite a trek ahead of us today as we planned to take a small ferry  across to Cape Clear Island. This is the most southerly part of Ireland. Accordingly we set off fairly early (does 09:00 count as early?) and headed off down the N71. We tried to make good time with regular short stops, you know the pattern by now. We stopped at Ross Carber to eat at a picnic table in the bay. It was sunny but the sea breeze meant we were reluctant to stay too long. After Skibbereen the road to Baltimore was awful. Our first real taste of how poor some roads in Ireland are, and made worse by the incredible density of traffic. I had to look at the map twice to convince myself that we weren't heading for a major city.
Where were all these people going? All was revealed when we arrived at Baltimore.

The harbour was mobbed, a pipe band played and over 1000 tourists milled around. 
In due course a small ferry boat arrived and we bobbed over the ocean waves to the Island.
This is a small rocky outcrop from the sea with the most unbelievably steep roads cut in to the rock face. The hostel is a small stone built building in the south harbour. Idyllic, beautiful, use whatever words you like but they will not be enough to describe the location.
Alan and Trevor made the meal tonight with a Mexican theme. Complete with Tequila Slammers. Alan had brought a whole bottle of Tequila and some little plastic glasses with LEDs in the base which flash when you slam the glass down. It's this attention to detail which makes Trevor and Alan the best hostel cooks in the world.

In such a remote location you'd normally expect us to have a quiet night in. However this location is so perfect there's a  pub just ten minutes walk up the hill. That's where we went to end a perfect day.