When I was originally planning my trip, this fourth day of driving was a drive to Cork to see that city, and then a drive back to Dublin. I didn’t realize how many hours driving that meant. The tiny roads also meant that I had to concentrate all the time during the driving, because on the non-highway roads it always feels like there’s barely enough room for 2 cars (1 for each direction), so I had to make sure the car isn’t in the bush nor too far in the opposite lane.
After 2 hours of driving (including a nap break because I realised I was still very tired) and later than expected, I reached Cork.
The weather that day wasn’t great, it was cloudy with periods of rain, and I was running late, so I wondered how much of Cork I could enjoy.
After parking the car, I walked towards the city centre, looking around as usual. The intermittent rain meant I was mostly looking for shelter. Luckily there were a few malls I could stay dry in. (My “packing light” philosophy meant I didn’t bring an umbrella on this trip). After a while I reached the English Market, at the perfect time of lunch. But deciding what to get wasn’t that easy either, with many many choices, but somehow there was no food where I really thought “I have to try that!”.
After lunch and waiting for the rain to stop, I walked down the side streets of central Cork back towards the car. The sun had returned, so this was a better walk than before lunch.
The drive to Dublin was another 3 hours according to Google Maps. But I wanted to visit Wicklow Mountains National Park and the Guinness Lake (official name: Lough Tay) along the way. So, after a too-short visit of Cork, I was back on the road.
The drive through the national park was cool: it was foggy, giving the place a mystical feeling, I stopped a few times to take pictures.
The main attraction of the afternoon was Lough Tay, also known as Guinness Lake. It’s a lake on a private property which was owned by a great-great-great-grandson of the founder of Guinness. And what a property to own, surrounded by a national park, a lake and an estate house, where guests like Mick Jagger and The Beatles come to chill out.
And the visit was worth it, the area was nice and quiet and the scenery was amazing. I spent quite a bit of time just enjoying it. While I was there, a young couple showed up in a Porsche to also have a look. Damn, I wished I had a Porsche and a lovely companion!
After this, it was about another hour and a half of driving to reach Dublin and return the car.
Speaking of the rental car, it was a nice new car, with features like keyless entry, although this was sometimes annoying: I would step out of the car to take pictures and take the key with me (I wouldn’t want anyone to just get in the car and steal it), after a few meters the car would lock itself, but it would always beep its horn, calling attention to itself. Not great when I stopped at a nice and quiet scenic view with other people around.
When I got the car, it showed it had done 6619 km so far. I returned it with 8013 km, so I did 1394km in 5 days. Which is a lot of driving!