The Wild Atlantic Way shoots slowly north from Kinsale to Derry, or the other way around. In the straight line the towns are mere 400 kilometres apart as the bird flies, but its actual distance is over six times greater, so this gives you an idea that something fairly extraordinary is going on there.

The road twists, rises and falls, takes hairpin turns, follows the coast awhile and then climbs, runs between low mountains, and winds down to the shore, then up again, and over another range of hills, and plunges down, and again, and again.

Although it’s usually just as narrow as one or two lanes, sometimes not wide enough to allow vehicles to pass one another, a simple but wonderful pleasure was in a good surface and little or no traffic. Rolling slowly, I could take my eyes of the road to enjoy unspoiled places like the Moll’s Gap on the Ring of Kerry.