Beara Peninsula, Ireland 3/3

 Castletownbere is the centre of the area, with large port, seafood processing plant, good variety of shops and eating places.

 

Strange enough the only shop missing is a fish shop, so we hang around at the pier to see if there are small fishing boats coming back to unload at around 5 pm.

 

As there is no local market, fishermen sell direct to the processing plant, to be processed into frozen seafood or sent to elsewhere, once saw a big Spanish lorry parked there.

female brown crab

male brown crab

 

Purchased live lobster (1kg euro 15), live brown crabs (1kg each euro 5 each), fresh scampi (4kg) and fresh turbots (800gm each) euro 20.

 

scampi and turbot

 

To save water in camping car, steam lobster (15 minutes), crab (20 minutes) and scampi (4 minutes).

 

Brown crab is in double shell season, both male and female have good crab fat, with the male one more creamy,  but flesh of female is more tender. 

 

As the area has many sheep and cow farm, also purchased a rib steak from the butcher, delicious, nice change from seafood.  

rib steak

Beara Peninsula, Ireland 2/3

Drove round the north end tip of the peninsula near Allihies where there were many copper mines. Can see clearly the sedimentary rock layers and in some areas very distorted.

 

 

Took the cable car to Dursey island for a hike, the cable car is of the very old style, scary looking. The island is inhabited by a few sheep farmers, some traditional houses are converted in good style to holiday letting. The hike is fine but not spectacular. 

 

 

 

Beara Peninsula, Ireland 1/3

Went to south west coast at Beara Peninsula for a few days, it looks like a long thin peninsula, but on driving around, is quite big with varied landscape. Unlike the north west side, the weather must be milder, there is more flower, vegetation and farm fields. 

Went for a hike near Castletownbere called Bullig bay looped walk, pleasant walk along the coast with fantastic view, lucky with the weather. 

 

The Mullet Peninsula, Ireland 4/4

 

 

Just hang around at the harbors around 5pm and it is easy to meet fishermen bringing their catches in. Talked to a few fishermen, most are taking lobsters and crabs from pots, crayfish from net, and line caught pollock.

 

It is actually the first time I see crayfish in Europe. Apparently fishermen here bring them in regularly, in much less quantity than lobster, and get much higher price for them. I bought 2 to try, at double the price of lobster, Euro 50 for 2, each 1kg.

 

After more chatting with the fisherman, got a few crabs thrown in for free, since no one like crab here and sell at very low price. He also mentioned that there were big spider crabs but since they are pay such low price for them, he let them free!

 

Chatted with another fisherman who got pollock, his crayfish and lobsters were sold to middleman and sent to China, now I know where the good stuffs are gone, great pity the Irish do not like seafood enough.

 

Cooked crayfish in water for around 15 minutes, big surprise, the shell is less thick than lobster, hence you got more meat inside. The meat is more tender and sweeter than lobster, and every legs is full of meat,  sweet and can come out easily in a whole piece, the flavor reminded me of snow crabs in Japan. It is worth the higher price.  

 

crayfish

crayfish omlette

brown crab

pollock

seared crayfish tail

 

squid roe, got caught in net and released

The Mullet Peninsula, Ireland 3/4

Other than walking along the many magnificent beaches, there is also a wonderful coastal walk along the edge of the cliff. Unfortunately it was not a sunny day, never the less, really enjoyed the feeling of wilderness around. 

 

Erris Head loop walk

Erris Head loop walk

Erris Head loop walk

Erris Head loop walk

 

The Mullet Peninsula, Ireland 2/4

This Peninsula has many beaches, all long, wide clean and without any buildings/facilities, left natural.

In cloudy day, the colour tone of any beach is mild and the place is peaceful, when the sun is out, it is totally different, like in the tropic.

 

Cross Bay

Annagh head

Blacksod east bay

Blacksod east bay

Blacksod east bay

 

The Mullet peninsula, Ireland 1/4

Carry on with the mini tour of the west coast, further north to The Mullet Peninsula, the most westerly point of Europe.

 

It is just north of the famous Achill Island, also with a lot of sandy beaches, but is far less visited, making it looks like a poor cousin.

 

Probably because of lower expectation, I actually enjoy this visit very much Vast amount of open spaces, few human and human touches, the feeling of being in the wilderness is memorable. 

 

First stop, Blacksod bay, big white sand bay, the harbour is busy with fishermen off loading crayfish, lobster and crab. 

Blacksod bay harbour

Blacksod west bay

lobsters