Ever since I first planned to get a Caterham, I have been thinking about road trips to take it on. The first of these is the Wild Atlantic Way in Ireland. I don’t have as much time as I would like but a gap in the family diary allows me to take a week off to give it a try.

With only a week available, I am not going to have time to do it all but can do the southern part (a loop from Rosslare around to Dublin taking in the Ring of Kerry and Athlone). I based my route on the Club pages on the MyRoute app.

My route went from:

• Fishguard to Rosslare via afternoon ferry, overnight in Wellingtonbridge
• Night 2 near Ahakista
• Night 3 in Kenmare
• Night 4 in Ballyvaughn
• Night 5 in Dublin
• Back from Dublin to Holyhead by the morning ferry and then home.

Finding your way

The Wild Atlantic Way is pretty well signposted (with separate signs for people doing north-south and south-north). I realised after a while that there were various side-trips you could take off the main route that would take you to specific peninsulas and headlands. I found this quite useful as you could be selective and suit the available time. I certainly didn’t manage to do half of these in the time I had available.

How Long

I ended up driving around 200 miles per day which was plenty. It did allow time to stop fairly regularly to look at the view, although not time to really explore places. By the time I had eaten a full Irish Breakfast in the B&Bs I was staying in, I didn’t feel the need for much else until my evening meal – and Guinness of course. The roads are mostly narrow and bendy (that’s the point), so the average speed is low.

I did the trip over five days and only covered about half of the full route which goes all the way up the West Coast. I could easily have doubled the time if I stopped to see everything.

I ended up doing around 850 miles overall (excluding travel in the UK)

Getting Noticed

You will get noticed. Every time I stopped to admire the view or pick up fuel, someone would come over and want to talk about the car. Every time.

I am not complaining – its quite nice to get so many compliments and questions. On one occasion, someone chased after me and when I pulled over, he leapt out of his car and sprinted across to me (it was slightly worrying actually) and demanded, in a very friendly way, what the car was and how he could get one.

Busyness

I went across in late August which was presumably peak season. The roads were mostly pretty empty, although some of the stops around the Ring of Kerry were busy with coaches.

Accommodation in B&Bs was reasonably easy to find.

Weather

It’s Ireland. It rains. I didn’t really mind that although there was one day when it regularly went from bright sunshine to pouring rain and given how slow some of the roads are, I couldn’t rely on the slipstream around the car keeping me dry.

I ended up putting the roof on and off numerous times. A half hood looks to me like a good choice for these conditions as at least it isn’t too hot when the roof is on and the sun comes out.

Highlights

So some highlights for me:

Must-do roads

• Corkscrew Hill (N67 from Ballyvaughan to Lisdoonvarna). The name says it all. Ballyvaughan is well worth a visit in its own right. Lovely little village.

• Kenmare to Killarney (N71). This was a stunning bendy road with a variety of spectacular views. Its officially part of the Ring of Kerry.
• Ring of Kerry. This did not disappoint in terms of scenery but was the busiest section of the drive. I did it clockwise which seemed to be ideal because most of the coaches were doing it the other way around.
• Timoleague. Small town with beautiful ruined Friary.
• Dingle. Medium sized town with lots to see.
• Cliffs of Moher. Top of my bucket list but when I got there it was completely fogged in. But a spectacular view at other times by all accounts. Might need to book in advance.

Ferries

It was nice to break up the driving with some short local ferry trips. This included:

• Tarbert to Killimer (a 20 minute journey but knocking off about 90 mins of driving).
• Valentia Island to Reenard Point (this isn’t on the official route – I presume because a few additional cars will swamp the capacity of very small ferry service).