What is it about mankind that, given a free source of stones, he builds something? I guess we just can't help ourselves. Walking up on the Burren, the stunning limestone landscape in north west County Clare, you can't help but pick up a stone and balance it on another, and another, until you have a small personal monument to your own passing-by, another to add to the collection of human monuments that scatter the upland terraces. Stone age man is suddenly not that hard to understand.

And while you are down on your knees, searching for the right stone, you wonder at that small pink flower. And then at another, different pink flower. Then there is a yellow one, and a white one, and a purple orchid, a blue harebell, a scattering of botanical mysteries that would take a glorious summer day with flora guide in hand to research, identify and notate. Maybe with small hand drawn pictures, coloured in prettily.
But sooner or later, having ravished the views to the County Clare coast, having visited the hidden holy well on the side of the hill and drunk a small mouthful of mountain water from the communal cup left there (having secretly prayed to come back again), its time to depart and head eastwards, away from Ireland's hidden west towards the literary melting pot of Dublin.

So I said a sad good bye to my Walk the West of Ireland compatriots and set off, suddenly alone, alone in a hire car which being European-registered had the indicators on the left and the windscreen wipers on the right. I am sure nothing says 'tourist' more obviously to a fellow motorist than indicating to turn with a swish of the wipers and trying to wipe away the sporadic rain with a blinker to the left or right.

The Rock of Cashel is another convincing example of the 'have stone build tall tower' theory. A 12th century round tower to please the most ambitious of architects dominates the collection of buildings which include a chapel and a cathedral, all sitting proud and glorious atop a stone outcrop that gives a birds eye view of the surrounding country side and would-be invaders. The Kings of Munster had their seat here, the legendary founder Conall Corc built his chapel in the early years of the 12th century and a 13th century cathedral was built around it. Below on the grasslands the ruins of the cisterician Hore Abbey add to the feeling of town shrouded in history and myth.

My mission in Cashel was actually culinary rather than historical - to track down the makers of the renowned Cashel Blue cheese. So after a comfy night at Sheila O'Sullivan's farmhouse B&B, Derrynaflan House (where I can recommend Sheila's own farmhouse cheese for breakfast) I was off to find out the story of the cheese....

Connemara’s calling – the Roundstone Pony Show

He is big, bad and beautiful. I look him in the black-as-black eye and he stares right back at me, tosses his mane and dances on two feet in a polite but barely restrained pirouette. His handler, a grey-bearded red-faced gentleman, whispers something in a twitching ear and he drops his head, settles his snowy white haunches and allows himself to be led on away around the field, nostrils flaring, tail billowing, not so much as a backward glance. I didn’t get his name but he looks like Danny Boy to me. There are maybe twelve other contenders in the Stallion class at the Roundstone Connemara Pony Show, but Danny Boy is the one that’s caught my eye.

The show is in a field at the back of Roundstone in Connemara. The harbour below is scattered with the red sails of Galway Hookers, out for a day’s sailing in the summer wind. The field is crowded with sheep, dogs and ponies, plus their handlers, the spectators, their families and anyone else who happens to be passing. It’s a big social event and an important one on the Connemara Pony calendar – those that qualify here go on to the Clifden show which is even more prestigious.

There are grays, slivers, duns and even a chestnut in the Stallion class, but mostly they are white as snow. Manes and tails could have been spun from finest Irish linen. Coats are a-gleaming, polished and buffed, smooth as a well pressed pillowcase, muscles bunched underneath. Their handlers are, in the main, well-dressed country gentlemen, with tweeds, shirts and leather boots, red complexions and serious expressions. But there are a couple of exceptions – younger men, dyed hair, trendy shirts. The next generation of Connemara pony breeders coming on up through the ranks. They do their first lap round the ring at a walk, then a trot, then a run up straight on to the two well-dressed lady judges to check their action.

As each fellow gets his turn the others wait. Standing in hand, twitching slightly under a restrained exterior. Occasionally the waiting gets the better of one of them. The odd squeal. A flash of hoof. An under the breath Irish curse from the handler at his side. The crowd distracted for a moment as one or another goes up on his hind legs or fires both barrels behind him at whoever is standing too close. And then settles, the fury gone.

It takes a long time, judging Stallions. They are inspected from all quarters, up, trotted down. Hands are run down flanks. Eyes eyeballed, shoulder, wither, bone and fetlock considered. The judges confer. One is called in to the centre of the ring. Then a second, a third, a fourth. They change their minds. Swap third for fourth. Walk around again. Nod. Agree. The red ribbon is handed out, the blue, the green, the yellow. Hands are shaken. Stoical faces crack a smile. The crowd claps and mutters, agrees and disagrees. “Well done Patrick” or “Good horse that”. Some just look at their catalogue and frown. Back in the ring Danny Boy is wearing the red ribbon, looking like hot butter would not melt in his mouth. Then they leave the ring, the place getters following the winner. Smug as punch is Danny Boy.

Walk the West #4 - Island life on Inis Bofin

 The ruined fort at the entrance to Inis Bofin Harbour

The ferry from Cleggan to Inis Bofin is best taken in the rain, so you can taste the damp salty air and play hide and seek with the islands as they come and go through the mist. If you're lucky the crossing will be flat calm, the wake stretching out behind you, and  you'll wonder about the lives of the people of Connemara who have rowed their currachs between the islands to tend their sheep and potato crops for hundreds of years.

There are stories to tell about the old ruined fort which that welcomes you as you enter the mouth of the harbour. If you're lucky enough as we were to have historian Micheal Gibbons at your side you'll be regaled with tales of English Garrisons on the island, the wrecks of the Spanish Armada that litter the coastline, Irish politics and in-fighting, inheritance and war in this nation of a hundred countries.

You'll be helped off the ferry by the crew warning you to mind your fingers, then make your way past the lobster pots, bicycles and beer kegs along the quay and up the road to the pub where you'll sit and steam and enjoy hot soup and good coffee and listen to Micheal's history of the Battle of the Boyne before you start exploring the island.

Micheal Gibbons and Rachel Ryan looking at the Bronze Age Hill Fort on Inis Bofin

Then maybe you'll walk along the island track to the bronze age hill fort that sits to the west, on a rocky promontory looking out to sea, easily defended against attack from all sides. They built their walls and their houses well, these people. So well that we can map the traces of their lives etched on the landscape despite the warm blanket of bog that has settled on it since.

If you are lucky the rain and the mist will let you into more of the islands secrets - maybe the sun will break through the cloud mantle as you walk across the bog lands that lie below the fort, cut for generations by island families to warm their hearths. A soft island light might illuminate the mouth of the sea caves and inlets that adorn the coastline like so many pretty stones on a necklace your grandmother gave you, a piece of history - maybe true, maybe not -  attached to each one.

Sea Caves on Inis Bofin

You could meet a local fisherman who will share his best recipe for mackerel or lobster, and walk the road back to the pub with you - where you'll sit in the warm again and down a black-as-peat Guiness while you reflect on what it would be like to spend days and nights, maybe a lifetime, on an island in the West of Ireland.

Inis Bofin Mackerel:
Use feathers as a lure - they like the bright and shiny things.
First fillet your mackerel. (Save the bones for good fish stock).
Brush fillets lightly with hot english mustard and a scraping of butter
Grill until cooked.
Eat with soda bread and butter and a glass of cold Guiness.

Island Lobster:
Use pollock for bait in your lobster pot, and keep the crabs away as the lobsters and crabs don't see eye to eye.
Blanch your lobster in boiling water for 10 minutes
Cut in half lengthwise, spread the white flesh generously with butter and grill for five minutes.
Eat as for the mackerel.

(Back) Rachel, Pauline, Pauline, Caroline, 

(Front) Julie, Robyn, Shirley

We’re a diverse bunch travelling together. Five guests – two Paulines, a Julie, a Shirley and a Robyn. Plus myself (writer, photographer and kitchen hand); Rachel (Walk the West of Ireland tour leader, organizer, driver, people person); Hugh (Rachel’s brother, driver of second vehicle, suitcase lugger, Guinness taster and repository of Irish Jokes) and last but not least Elin (Hugh’s partner, gourmet cook and all round provider of good things).

On Wednesday we left the faded glory of Enniscoe House and headed West to Achill Island. As always on any journey involving two cars sooner or later there is a moment when both accidentally head off in different directions, each assuming the other is in front. In this case one went the scenic route, one went the other scenic route. What goes on tour stays on tour!

Our guide in Achill was Gerard Mangan, born and bred in the area and now a qualified Failte Ireland tour guide. Gerard walked with us up on to the hills above our cottage at Corriemore, and guided us in a day walk on through the Deserted Village of Slievemore and on around the base of the mountain to a welcoming Guiness at the pub on the other side.

The Deserted Village has its own sad story of disaster set in the years of the Irish Potato Famine, around 1846, when the crops failed due to the potato blight. These people lived within sight of the sea but when their main crop of potatoes failed due to the blight that year they pawned their herring boats and nets to buy seed for the next year. When the crop failed again the following year, and the herring failed to arrive off shore, they found themselves starving. It's a sad tale with many sides to it, but for me the poignant sight of the 70 odd stone cottages, roofs gone, wild mountain sheep grazing among them, was enough to hint at the agony of any mother who found herself unable to feed her children.

Walking on around the mountain Gerard pointed out the many mountain flora thriving in the rich Peat ecosystem - Bog Asphodel, Heather, Ling, Lousewort, Tormentil, to name a few. Plus there were meadow brown butterflies and a harrier hawk, but the local Chough was not to be seen by us.

From the slopes of Slievemore you  look out to Clare Island, the home of Grace O'Malley, or Granueile as she was known. Grace was a wild Irish woman and head of the O'Malley clan who lived from around 1530 to 1603. She controlled her fighting men with an iron fist and reputedly sailed to England to meet face to face with Elizabeth 1. The coastline of Connemara is littered with castles and strongholds thought to have formed part of her wide defences, and she has captured the imagination of many writers with her wild ways.

Kildavet Castle - one of Grace O'Malley's castles in Connemara

So we left Achill with our heads full of stories of pirate queens and hardy Irish souls who fought against hardship - many of whom emigrated to foreign shores to escape the fate of their compatriots. The landscape out here is wild and barren, and there are signs of human habitation from neoliothic times. Everything we've looked out on has been touched by human hands at some time as they strived to feed their families despite many hardships. Today Achill is a thriving seaside holiday destination with some wonderful beaches and plenty of pubs and local food, but hearing the stories of its people and seeing the deserted cottages put it in a fascinating historical light for me.

Walk the West #2 -Irish Peat Bog and Organic Salmon!

Seamas Caulfield

Standing on North Mayo blanket bog listening to Seamas Caulfield recite the words of the poem ‘Belderg’, written by a young Seamus Heaney after a visit to the Neolithic farming settlement uncovered by his father, has to be at the top of my list so far of spine tingling experiences here in the West of Ireland. We spent a morning with Seamas, walking around the ‘open-air laboratory’ that is Belderg, where he grew up and where he has spent 40 years working to uncover the mysteries of the Neolithic people that farmed the land thousands of years ago. His son Declan has recently moved here to continue with his father’s work, and it is that sense of being connected to the land, generation by generation, that Seamas managed to convey to us as we walked around the ancient site.

Seamas’s father was the local school teacher. He cut peat for his family hearth. In the 1930s he wrote to the Irish National Museum to tell them that he’d noticed dry stone walls underneath the peat, and made the observation that they must therefore be older than the peat. Seamas was inspired into a career in archeology which lead to the creation of the Ceidhe Fields visitor centre, where 30,000 visitors a year experience the discovery made by his father.  It is believed that a large community of primitive people lived and farmed in the area until being driven out by the encroaching bog. The research has raised as many questions as it has answered and Seamas is confident there will be ongoing work for many lifetimes ahead.

Jim Henry is another North Mayo resident, who can trace his ancestry back to the Anglo Norman invasions of 1169. Jim took us on a walk along the cliffs near Benwee head where we were buffeted by the North Atlantic winds. He shared his stories of the human settlement of the area, the bog cutters, the farmers, the fishermen, and more recently the artists responsible for sculptures such as the Children of Lir up on the cliffs. He told us tales of St Patrick who arrived in the area around 432 AD, returning to a place where he had been enslaved as a young man, because he felt such a love for the Irish people. Patrick was a clever missionary who founded a church that is still evident today by allowing the pagan people to keep their festivals and sacred sites, but blessed them in the name of Christianity and was able to integrate the two religions into what is now the Church of Ireland. He was also, if legend is to be believed, personally responsible for the blow holes and sea stack at Dun Patrick Head.

So after a fair amount of history and culture, religion and archeology it’s been good to spend the nights at the stables apartments at Enniscoe House. Our rooms have old oak floors, walls at least 12 inches thick and little slit windows. The great house’s Georgian façade was an addition to an older dwelling. It sits above Lough Cong with beautiful gardens and woodland with Sequoia and deciduous trees dating back to the early 19^th century. Elin’s cooking has been delicious – tonight was Connemara crab claws for starter followed by baked organic salmon and rhubarb bread and butter pudding. Need to walk more tomorrow!

Connemara's calling day one

Wild Irish Salmon tastes pretty good but if any of them managed to get past the Irish Open Spey Casting Competition on the River Moy in Ballina they deserved their freedom - the rods were lined up like soldiers along the river casting away, and believe it or not the salmon were jumping about in the shallow pool below a weir further upstream. We saw a few and they were big fish. But savvy. As fish can sometimes be. Sneaky salmon rather than wily trout I guess. 

We'd arrived in Ballina mid afternoon after driving from Galway via Cong - a pretty village famous for being the location of The Quiet Man movie with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. More fishing intrigue there - the monks at the abbey had a fishing hut built over the river with a hole in  floor so they could light the fire and keep warm while waiting for the fish to bite. They were pretty smart despite the dodgy haircut.

Ballina welcomed us with the strains of bagpipes warming up and a slightly fishy smell. We went back in the evening and just caught  the St Laurence O'Toole Pipe Band (www.slotpb.com) who played some incredible stirring stuff as they strode through the streets of the town. I'd put in on a par with watching the All Blacks do the Haka for raising the hairs on the back of your neck.

Our accommodation for the night was at the Old Deanery Cottages at Kilalla - an ancient village complete with 12th century Round Tower, village gaol with a wonderful meal at The Arch restaurant - some of that fresh sea run salmon went down very well.  There is something about the village that makes me want to come back sometime - the older than old buildings, the legends of St Patrick who established a settlement here in 432 AD, and is still a strong part of the local mythology. This trip is turning into a journey into Ireland's past and the culture that runs strong in its communities today.

She flies like a bird

I've always wanted to be the yellow trouser suited girl who flew fearlessly through the air in the 1970s classic nimble ad. She was thin, blonde, smiley and wore a fetching yellow trouser suit suspended in a harness, floating under what looks like a parachute eating a slice of 'real bread but lighter'.  If only they knew then what we know now about carbs. But still, its a nice song. Uplifting in fact. And I got uplifted myself last week, as I went on a long promised balloon flight with friend and balloon pilot Neil, plus co-passengers Claire and Terry. Neil lives near Reading in Berkshire so we assembled in the field next to his home while an attentive crew of small neighbours helped with the process of inflating the balloon, which unfolded out of a remarkably small bag  to cover half the paddock. Neil managed to look calm and collected despite the plethora of keen 9-year-old helpers who I suspect were planning on stowing away.

So one minute we had a pile of crumpled fabric and an over-sized picnic basket on its side, the next it was upright, the balloon was billowing and we were scrambling inside. And then "up up and away in my beautiful balloon" we went. Cool.

Having just flown on a crowded jumbo jet from New Zealand to the UK, I really appreciated the new perspective on flying, being up in the air above the crowds and the true meaning of a bird's eye view. England in summer never ceases to amaze me - it is so easy to forget the soft greens of the countryside, the neat and ordered fields, and the gentle but ancient landscape that I was bought up in. New Zealand is beautiful too, but in a much less refined way. It's more raw, less predictable, less accommodating. There was something incredibly safe and heartwarming about floating above the River Thames, watching rowers beat their way upstream, people walking their dogs, families picnicking by the river. And they came out of their houses to watch, wave, and whoop. So we had to be careful not to say things like "what an ugly house" or "gosh that's a messy back garden" because apparently they could hear what we said. Balloonists don't like getting shot at.

The wind blew us along the Thames towards Henley, we tried to water-splash into a lake but didn't quite make it, landed bumpily but safely in a field of thistles (note to future balloonists - wear long trousers and closed in shoes). After we'd somehow packed a balloon the size of a small house into a bag the size of a car boot we then had to escape from the gated industrial estate we'd landed in through someone's back garden. The balloon was retrieved without incident next day.

So what did I learn from all this? Balloon Pilots have control over the ups and downs but are completely at the mercy of the prevailing winds. Landings can be unexpected and bumpy. And England is still as beautiful and welcoming as ever.