All movement is accomplished in six stages

Even though I was supposed to be hard at work over the last couple of days, while Ben and Toby managed to see the Geevagh stages I did manage to find the time get a few shots of the cars in the service park on Thursday morning, and again as they were driving between stages this morning. I uploaded a selection to my albums here

Unfortunately Marcus Gronholm came a cropper this morning on our difficult roads - I manage not to crash every day on the same roads in my C4, does that make me world champion? Anyway, things are looking good for the Citroen boys, or are they? with two more days to go and worse weather promised nothing is certain.

There has been such a great buzz in the air the last few days, people here are really having a good craic getting into the spirit of the rally. There are a lot of extra people around, and a lot of other events going on in conjunction with the Rally. Friday evening we went to the town of Boyle for a mini festival with vintage cars, a crafts fair and lots of yummy food. Tomorrow evening we are going to head into Sligo town for the French market, parade and fireworks. I do hope the rain holds off for the fireworks! I am also looking forward to the cliff-top final stage on Sunday. That could prove fun on the slippery roads, and it is going to be televised live

The beaches of north west Ireland are one of our best kept secrets.

Streedagh Strand for instance is a vast sandy beech with dunes and a lagoon behind. There are fantastic views over the sea to the mountains of Donegal, and behind to the famous Ben Bulbin, at the foot of which lies the grave of WB Yeats.

Who would have thought this was the location of such a violent end to some of the Spanish Armada?

These pictures are of the remains of a ship, wrecked and buried in the sand, they say it is from the Armada. It certainly is very old oak as one can see on close examination.

The quotes are from Francisco de Cuellar's account of the Shipwreck of the the galleon, San Juan de Sicilia.

On the fifth day there sprang up so great a storm on our beam, with a sea up to the heavens, so that the cables could not hold nor the sails serve us, and we were driven ashore with all three ships upon a beach, covered with very fine sand, shut in on one side and the other by great rocks. Such a thing was never seen: for within the space of an hour all three ships were broken in pieces, so that there did not escape three hundred men, and more than one thousand were drowned, among them many persons of importance, captains, gentlemen, and other officials.

when any one of our people reached the beach, two hundred savages and other enemies fell upon him and stripped him of what he had on until he was left in his naked skin. Such they maltreated and wounded without pity, all of which was plainly visible from the battered ships, and it did not seem to me that there was anything good happening on any side

The enemies and savages, who were on the beach stripping those who had been able to reach it by swimming, did not touch me nor approach me, seeing me, as I have said, with my legs and hands and my linen trousers covered with blood. In this condition I proceeded, little by little, as I could, meeting many Spaniards stripped to the skin, without any kind of clothing whatsoever upon them, chattering with the cold, which was severe, and thus I stopped for the night in a deserted place, and was forced to lie down upon some rushes on the ground, with the great pain I suffered in my leg