After spending the day in Cobh, we got back in the car to make our way to Kinsale, another harbortown on the southern coast, and the place where we were staying for the next two nights. But, before detailing our adventures in Kinsale, let’s backtrack and recap where we’ve been thus far. Here is a map showing the the route we’ve taken to get to this point.
Our route to Kinsale
We’ve traveled just over 200 miles and made stops in 4 villages in the 48 hours since we picked up our rental car. A good part of the drive from Cahir to Cobh was on the M8, a main thoroughfare, until we were in the vicinity of Cork. It was at this point that we turned east and drove over bridges and onto Fota Island, where the Irish Open (golf) was hosted just two weeks prior. Cobh is also located on an island, accessible only by bridge or ferry.
While planning our itinerary, I’d read about the cross river ferry that runs from Rushbrooke (Cobh) to Glenbrook and learned that it would save us at least 40 minutes of driving time, as we wouldn’t have to go back over the bridge to Fota Island and through Cork to get to Kinsale. We decided to do this, but our GPS did not recognize it as an attraction / site. So, instead we programmed in a location near where the ferry ‘terminal’ is located and proceeded. We followed the GPS directions, but did not see the ferry. After a few minutes, I noticed that the GPS had gone unusually quiet. We pulled over, looked at our road atlas, turned on googlemaps on my iPhone and realized that we must have passed the terminal a few miles back.
We turned around and after driving for approximately 5 minutes, noticed this tiny dock on the river, but no sight of a terminal. We decided to drive over there and ask how to get to the ferry. A man signaled for us to drive up to him, I rolled down my window, he asked for €4, which we paid and then told me to put on my handbrake. We asked for directions how to get to Kinsale, he told us to head towards Carigaline, and then we were prepared to wait for the ferry to leave. All of a sudden, we realized it HAD been moving the entire time we’d been talking with the man and we were already across the river! We didn’t even have time to take a photo.
A minute long video on youtube showing the ferry crossing can be found here.