Checking out after a good chat with Bronnie's sister Amanda who's having a tough time with recovery from a badly broken leg, we looked into the things we might see en route to Drimoleague.

We decided to check out Aillwell where there are caves, birds of prey and cheese centre, before a visit to the much publicised Cliffs of Moher.

We bought a 3 in 1 pass and had a terrific cave tour with our guide Des. The cave was found by a farmer in the 1940s and opened to the public in the 1970s. It revealed the remains of 2 brown bears (quite small by bear standards...1m tall on all fours). One from 10000 years ago and the other from 4500 years ago. They used to hibernate in the caves. We were able to see the bear pits that they smooth out for themselves which was nice. There is one main tunnel that runs through the system with a curved roof from when the water ran through. The water table is now well below the base of the cave so it is more arch shaped as a result. Some nice formations but most of it young (under 1 million years old).

Next, we saw the birds of prey show. First up was a red kite called Saoirce. Cool flying and interesting to hear about them plus a wild bird buzzard that was hanging around up high too. Kites have triangular shaped tails and buzzards more rounded. Both are updraft gliders. There has been a lot of effort going into reintroducing birds of prey to Ireland with some considerable success. The golden eagle has been the hardest, but kites and sea eagles have done really well.

Second bird was a barn owl. Very cool to see him flying around. He was 16 years old which was interesting because in the wild they live 3-5 years. We even got to have him land on our arm which was cool. They suffer often from rodenticide poisoning (eating near dead but poisoned mice/rats).

Third bird was Dyson, a vulture. He was cool. At 30 years old, you could see how smart he was. They are a much underrated bird that do a great job and minimising the transmission of disease from animal to human by cleaning up a carcass in 1 day! They are monogamous and breed once they are 10 years old, only laying 1-2 eggs every 1-2 years. Slow! It can be incredibly devastating to them then when poisoned animals that die are eaten. In 2017, there was an elephant that was eaten by vultures and sadly 400 birds died. In India, a different cause for the total collapse of their vulture population is another drug, diclofenac. It is given to cows as pain relief as they age (ceremonial animals, not eaten there). It is highly toxic to vultures....they've lost all of them. Sucks to be India.

Last stop was a cheese making facility where we tried their yummy gouda and made a purchase of cheese, relish and sesame crackers for food en route to Drimoleague later in the day.

After that we headed off to Cliffs of Moher. Touristy! Some insanely close calls with buses travelling in the opposite direction. The roads are simply not wide enough and yet the buses are there. Quite annoying and dangerous. What I think then happens is that other drivers feel like it's OK to drive over the middle of the road...a bit aggressive because they too are baulked by buses so "why not". Tricky drive.

The cliffs themselves are lovely. They weren't amazingly more impressive than other coastal scenes we've been to (not to be critical), but I think is a reflection of group think. Given that many people go and visit them, and that they are certainly high enough but susceptible to erosion, combined with people's innate stupidity near cliffs trying to show how nonchalant they are by sitting on the very edge of cliffs, legs hanging over...recipe for disaster. So, I think tourist industry realises that you need to either close them or put major infrastructure in place. Once the infrastructure is there, more buses, more people, more insta photos and the cycle continues.

So, into the car at 3:15pm, to find that there was still 3.5 hours to get to our accommodation. Yuck. With sunlight still now until about 6:15pm, not too bad...but afternoon driving after sightseeing on windy roads is NOT for the easy to frighten I promise. On arrival at our new place, we were super pleased to realise that it is fully working dairy and they are more than happy to have you come into the dairy at milking time...which was just about to start for the evening.

Very, very interesting. They have 70 milking cows that are milked twice daily with the milk going to the nearby Carbery plant where it is turned mostly into a cheese called "Dubliner". We will be getting some tomorrow. Richard let us put the cups on some of the quieter cows and we also got to see the milk being given to some of their new calves.

Every year, they use Angus semen to AI their upcoming heifers as those calves are smaller. They have about 10-20 replacement females most years. They then use sexed semen (female) in their best cows to produce their replacement females for 2 years time. We saw these calves but this year, 2 of them were male!!! oops. The rest of the cows are then run with their hereford bull for 6 weeks. After that, the bull is taken out so that calving doesn't run on for too long. All of the calves are born in January-February. Any cows that don't calve are kept until the end of their lactation (another 4 months after preg testing) and are then sold locally to farmers who fatten them for meat sale.

Once the cows calve, they are given an antibiotic shot that means their milk can't be used commercially for 5 days, but they still need milking. So, they have a tag on their leg so you can see from down on the dairy floor which ones to leave until last milking. This milk is given to the calves that are kept in pens in nearby sheds. Very cute little calves. They waggle their tails when feeding...an easy way to see if it's working or not when they are with their mums for the first 2 days of colostrum. The cross calves and any male friesians are sold at 3 weeks old on Fridays (unmarked) at the local markets. These are kept and grown out by other local farmers. Apparently, a number of farmers locally are getting out of dairy but still have feed etc, so there is a reasonable market for these stock. Good. The milk from recent calvers is used to feed these calves since otherwise it would be wasted.

Before milking, the cows udders are wiped down with a special cloth soaked in herbal antimicrobial. The cups are put on and it takes about 5-8 minutes for the milk to come out. They come off automatically once the milk flow gets low enough. The udders are then sprayed with a herbal spray that seals off the teats. Mastitis is the main concern for dairying!

The milk goes through a heat exchanger on its way to the holding tank on farm that takes it down from 38C to 21C, from which the large volume it is much easier to chill down to 4C for transport. Volume, high heat capacity and the need to stir it a lot if it was all chilled in one big batch. Anyway, plenty of poo splatter experienced meant a night washing and a late dinner, but overall a good day! Tomorrow, let's see what the south west has to offer!