Author: Robb Towns

I treated myself (well actually my daughters, wife and mother treated me for my birthday) to a couple of new lenses in my ever growing collection of goodies for my camera bag. I now have as part of my collection an Opteka 500 mm / 1000mm High Definition Telephoto lens and an Opteka 6.5mm F3.5 Wide angle Fish Eye Lens. I have taken a few test shots with them and here are the results below.

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Thank you ladies for such great gifts!

I went to a little indoor car show today. It was invite only and there were only a few cars. Because it was indoors, I didn’t really like most of the photos that I took, but one really stood out for me. I took an interior shot of a Chevrolet Fleetline Sedan. These cars were produced between 1946-1952. The lighting really worked for an interior shot and with a little lightroom magic the result below is my favourite photo this month.

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Saturday May 25 – We had an early start to our day. We were at the Airport for 6:30am and our flight left at 9am. We travelled from Dublin to Halifax. It was a great flight with clear skies over Newfoundland and PEI on the way into Halifax. Once in Halifax we had to wait for almost 5 hours for our flight to Ottawa. We actually were able to leave about 30 minutes early and then we were home by 5pm our time. So hard to believe that our Irish Holiday with our girls and our friends is now just a memory. I hope you enjoyed the photos and my short write ups. I mostly used my Nikon D5300 with the kit lens, but I also used my GoPro 4 (Carrick-a-Rede Bridge) and my LG6 cellphone camera (various). I did some post editing with Lightroom.

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Can’t wait for our next Photographic Adventure (Clue: has something to do with the last two pictures in this set)

Thanks for traveling along with us on this one!

Friday May 24 – Today was our last full day in Ireland. We started our day with a Jaunty Ride further up the Gap of Dunloe. When we found out we were staying in the Gap of Dunloe we discovered that these Jaunty Ride were the touristy thing to do. Our local guide and driver was really nice and full of interesting information. He showed us various sites along the way, one of which was where they filmed the first Irish Spring Soap commercial back in the 70’s. We stopped near the top of the Gap of Dunloe at Serpents Lake.. this is supposedly where the last snake in Ireland was killed by St. Patrick. After our return from our Jaunty ride we had a nice Lunch at Heather’s Restaurant and then it was time to head into Killarney to catch our bus back to Dublin. It was hard to say good bye to our friends but we made plans to get together again soon. We had a blast taking photos and experiencing Ireland together.

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Thursday May 23 – Today we headed south east from the Gap of Dunloe to the city of Cork, but specifically to Blarney Castle. Blarney Castle has been on my bucket list since we first started traveling to the UK together in 1985. We are pretty family focused to be in Scotland so I never thought we would make it to Ireland never mind Blarney Castle. The grounds and castle were so interesting. The Poison Garden especially so and of course kissing the Blarney Stone. Check that one done. Afterwards we returned to our cottage and had a nice walk up the Gap again to stretch our legs.

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Wednesday May 22 – Very excited about today’s trip out. We headed west along the Ring of Kerry road and the Wild Atlantic Way. We stopped at the Kerry Bog Village Museum which was very interesting. The smell of peat fires in the buildings brought lots of memories of our visits North in Orkney from years go by. We loved the thatched roofs on the houses. We then drove a little further to the town of Rossbeigh. There was a fantastic beach there that was being used by people, dog walkers and horseback riders. We enjoyed the beach a while and then head further west to the village of Cahersiveen. I had found that some family members had stayed her in the early 1800’s but we didnt find any of them in the graveyards we could find. We had nice lunch here and then we continued on our way to Portmagee. We had booked a boat tour out to the Skellig Islands. They filmed Star Wars: the Force Awakens here. The scenes were of them finding Luke. It was a very interesting tour. The views were spectacular. We were 3 days to early to actually land on the island and walk up. After the boat ride we returned to our cottage and walked up to Kate Kearney’s Cottage for a wonderful meal and live music and Irish Dancing.

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Tuesday May 21 – The weather today was spectacular. Truly our very first spring like weather we have had anywhere. In Canada we had a very long cold winter and a really wet and cool spring. We had breakfast outside and then we traveled to just the other side of Killarney to the Muckross House Estate. This beautiful house was built in 1843 for Henry Arthur Herbert and his wife, the watercolourist Mary Balfour Herbert. After preparing for 5 years for a 2 night visit of Queen Victoria, the family found themselves in financial difficulty. It was sold to Arthur Guinness (Guinness Beer fame) who rented out the house and grounds as a hunting lodge. He eventually sold the house to William Bowers Bourn. He and his wife lived in the house until her death in 1929. In 1932 the children presented Muckross House and its 11,000 acre estate to the Irish nation, creating Ireland’s first national park. After a great tour of the house we traveled by a jaunty carriage ride to Torc Falls. We had nice lunch back at Muckross House. After lunch we traveled a little further around the lake to Ross Castle. We had a nice walk around the castle and then a walk through the grounds.

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Monday, May 20 – Today we had breakfast at our diggs and then we headed down to Burgh Quay to catch our bus to Killarney. Our eldest daughter walked down with us and then we said good bye to her. We likely wont see her until next May when she comes home for a wedding. She headed off to the airport to return to Orkney. It was a 5 hour drive to Killarney on the bus. We went via Limerick and of course I had to post a limerick on Facebook while I was in Limerick. We arrived in Killarney about 3:30pm where we were met by my Internet Pen-pal, who is also a fellow photographer (see http://www.davethom.net) and his wife. We did a little bit of shopping and then we headed out to our cottage in the Gap of Dunloe. We had a great evening catching up on all our news and then we had a lovely walk up the Gap of Dunloe.

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Sunday, May 19 – We had a slower start today. We headed back down to O’Connell Street and found Murray’s Pub and Grill. We had a wonderful breakfast and our server mentioned that they had live music and dancing in the evening. She promised to book us a great table and so we went a head with the reservation. We then joined the Dublin Hop On and Off Bus tour. We did one complete circuit and then it was time to say good bye to our youngest daughter as she had to return to London for work on Monday. The three of us then walked through the iconic Temple Bar district of Dublin and we ended up at Christ Church Cathedral and had a great tour. We rejoined the Hop on Hop off bus tour and took the other route they offer and saw the rest the tour including the Teeling Distillery and the Guinness Brewery. We then did a bit of shopping along Henry Street. After our shopping we ended back up at Murray’s Bar and we had a wonderful dinner. We were basically on Stage with the Band and the Dancers. What a great evening we had, the music and dancing was awesome.

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Saturday, May 18 – No time to waste sleeping in on our first full day in Ireland with our kids. We were up at the crack of dawn. We took a taxi down to the meeting point for our tour of Northern Ireland with Wild Rover Tours. Starting out at 7am on the bus, we headed north from Dublin on our way to Belfast. Two hours later we arrived and got off the bus for our Black Taxi Tour. Our driver was an actual ex-IRA member who had been involved in the “Troubles”. The 2 hours we spent with him were very emotional and moving as we heard from his perspective the conflict between the two groups. We then re-boarded the bus and head further north to Dunluce Castle..unfortunately the fog and rain prevented a photo stop. Dunluce Castle was used in the HBO Series Game of Thrones. We continued down the coast a little bit and we arrived at the Giants Causeway. The rain and fog lifted just in time for us to explore the World UNESCO Heritage site. We then re-boarded the bus and again drove down the coast a bit to the Carrick-a-Rede Cliff and Rope Bridge walk. We then re-boarded the bus and drove along the coast line to the village of Ballintoy. Ballintoy harbour was also used in the Game of Thrones, but unfortunately our tour did not stop here, instead we turned south and headed back to Dublin. We were serenaded by our tour guide with live Irish music on the way back. We arrived back in Dublin about 8:30pm…a great day all around.

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