Sandy Bay to Ballybunion to Ennis and back to Cornwall

We were now coming to the end of this part of the tour. With one tent destroyed by storms, a failing gas stove and relentless stormy weather……but more than that, I was beginning to think about some large paintings I wanted to create about this tour, work and gallery/exhibition commitments for next year were beginning to surface in my mind. I had to think about getting back to Cornwall. We had in fact no where to go back too having given up the tenancy on the flat in St Just. So we were to all intents and purposes homeless……I knew that we would need some time to find somewhere to spend the winter…..produce new paintings for galleries and prepare for next year’s continuation of this world cycle tour artist in residence.

Ballybunion

I also had in mind that I would be doing the artist in residence on Tresco. Isles of Scilly, through Gallery Tresco at some point between December 2017 and March 2018. This would also be  part of the world cycle tour…….residencies within residencies….. bringing the tour to an end was not a sudden decision….It sort of grew over the next few day’s, as we cycled from Sandy Bay to Ballybunion and our last but one camp in Ireland in County Clare, where we met a wonderful cat……

But before that encounter we made a scale model of the solar system on the beach at Ballybunion…… for the scale we used the length of my foot to equal 10 million miles. So starting at the sun we had Mercury at 3.7 foot lengths (37 million miles from Sol……and so on), but sadly we misjudged the tide and could not complete it…..but here are  couple of images……

Here we have what’s left of the inner solar system being slowly washed away by the sea – Sol, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and the circular ring is the asteroid belt……

Jovian system

Our last but one campsite was wonderful and happened on the autumn Equinox – 22 September 2017, and that is where we met the cat….other cats, several very friendly dogs…. a couple of donkeys. many chickens and got to use a telescope……

Such  friendly cat…..

 

 

 

primitive technology

To celebrate the autumn equinox the owners had  small event in their celtic maze which was made by a local artist and we were  invited to take part….it was quite special and was a fitting end to the tour, an acceptance of the time of year, the change from Summer to Autumn….but we did stay up late to do some star gazing

……and then the final two days saw us cycle to Ennis, where we then took the coach back to Dublin to say farewell to friends, take the Ferry to Holyhead, train to Bristol, where we had fish and chips….. did  stealthy camp, cycled to Priddy for the last camp this year and on to the  nearest train station and back to Cornwall…….

To be continued……