Our first full day in Ireland. When we arrived yesterday we heard from the
cottage owners that there was to be a classic car rally today at nearby Wells
House at which they would be exhibiting their own vintage vehicle. Since it was only a couple of miles down the road we decided to go.
We got to the house quite early whilst the classic cars were still arriving
and had a look around. There were actually plenty of other attractions
including formal gardens and a woodland walk with very many excellent large
wooden statues.
The small petting zoo had some fun animals including some racoons and a
splendid pig,
By the time we returned to the front of the house, most of the classic cars
had arrived and there were probably 200 of them which is far more than we
expected.
The cars clearly fell into two completely separate categories. The first were
modern saloon cars which generally seemed to have been modified with fancy
paint jobs and suspension adjusted so that they scraped along the ground.
Basically the sort of vehicle driven by young men who believe that if they can
get the exhaust loud enough then it will cause their girlfriend’s clothes to
fall off! These were not interesting so we skipped them.
The second and fortunately larger category were true historic vehicles. The
earliest seemed to be from the 1920s, but the vast majority were from the 60s
to 80s. These were much more interesting and I spent quite a while admiring
them.
We paid an extra eight Euros for a guided tour of the house which was quite interesting. Fortunately, the guide spoke clearly and only had a modest accent.