A return to Kilkea, Athy, and some beers.

You may remember I was at Mullaghreelan woods, Kilkea, between Athy and Castledermot recently. Even if you don't, I do, because it wasn't that long ago. Anyway, I remember spotting a spot beside a river that I thought had potential.

Yesterday, with other halves being away on a chicken rouFndup weekend or something, A Friend and I took the opportunity to spend some hours making photographs - where better than this place, thought I. So he came to me, and we ventured on out, with our gear. Turned out to be quite interesting - there's a 5-arched bridge over the river, and quite a long weir - must investigate further, as there may be an old mill further downstream. So plenty of scope for photos - and this is what I got!

An overview of the bridge:


A view along the weir, a nice long exposure for some milky water effects


A picture of A Friend, scouting around for targets - his medium format camera doesn't quite have the portability or the clickability a digital camera has, but it's magnificent to hold and has an amazing viewfinder..


And another detail of the weir - whatever way the water was flowing, it turned out to me it looks like a watercolour - but I didn't paint it!



Following that, the light was fading, so we dropped into the shop to buy some (what I didn't realise was gone off) chicken, then we ordered chinese and fired into the beers:

Porterhouse Red - Excellent, very tasty, nicely drinkable, just the right amount of carbonation. The highlight and first beer down;

Porterhouse Hersbrucker pilsener -  a very fine pilsener, again, nice and tasty but this one for me didn't stand out. Above mass market beers yes, but a kind of ordinary non-standard beer if you get my meaning. Quite hoppy, I think, though I'm never quite sure - need more training.

Wells Banana Bread Beer - well now, this was different. Everyone should try this once. You mightn't have another, but it's very very interesting. I was glad we'd split the bottle two ways, as it's quite an overpowering taste, but a very clever beer. I'll have another, but maybe not for a while! It tastes quite strongly of banana bread. Not sure I had to spell that out...

Sierra Nevada Kellerweis - a hefeweisen beer, nice colour, cloudy as you'd expect, and tasty - which you mightn't expect in this style from the US. Could have more, definitely, nice and fruity. A Friend suggested custard, and I'm inclined to agree, there was a sweet vanilla flavour from the beer, which is definitely reminiscent of custard. Mmmm.

Mullaghreelan woods, Athy, Co. Kildare

Today we went for a walk in the woods, just a short one in the Mullaghreelan woods in Kilkea - between Athy and Castledermot in Kildare. It was a lovely day for it with nice bright low sunshine.

The woods themselves are small enough in area, mostly deciduous but with some coniferous stands centred around an old Rath believed to have belonged to the O'Tooles in times past. There's a short walk around (though you can extend this by taking the leg towards the castle, sadly no longer a hotel), illustrated with some informative signs.

And of course, there is no woods complete without it's own abandoned cottage.

In other news, this weekend I finished Iain M Banks' "Surface Detail," his latest Culture sci-fi novel. Based around the idea of a war between pro- and anti-Hell (Hell being a constructed reality in this novel) forces. Brilliantly written with the usual mix of technology, and the wry personality of the Ship Minds. Highly recommended. It's quite long though, so you get a bittersweet feeling at the end, slightly relieved you've got the story finished, but wanting for more. Enjoyed occasionally with an Erdinger Cristal. Lovely beer. MMMMmmmm.

And thanks to Coillte for allowing us all onto their lands.