Ballycogley is a small area not far from Rosslare and is the family home of Fr Michael, the parish priest in Guernsey. Fr Michael was over on holiday for a few days so I arranged to meet up with him. The whole area around here is really nice - it is the kind of place you would pass without even noticing (and I have 3 times since I've been in Ireland!) because it is away from the main roads, down a few country lanes. Even though it is only a 10 minute drive to Wexford town the place is so peaceful you feel like you are a long way from anywhere.
Looking to the Saltee Islands
Around every corner there was a Norman house fort, castle, or church ruin. The road led down to the coast where there are sand dunes, a long sandy beach, and a fishing quay. We went around some very interesting sites. We also went to visit some of Fr Michael's family and had a look around their stables where they breed thorough bred race horses.
An Old Thatched Church
Fr Michael's Cottage
I stayed here for one night and then left in the morning heading north with the plan of eventually ending up in Sligo and Donegal. After having had so many days of hot weather it was a bit of a supprise to wake up to heavy rain, but I wasn't too bothered because I planned on spending the whole day driving.
As I set off I found that my GPS had stopped working, so it was back to using maps and roadsigns. I passed through Wexford city, and then a few small towns and eventually on to the open road heading across country. It was here, while traveling at 80km/h that my back wheel decided it would fall off. A fairly scary experience but luckily I was the only person on the road and the only damage done was to my van. Once I had recovered from the shock I realised that I wasn't actually sure where I was, the rain was getting to the point of being torrential, and I was in an area without any mobile phone reception. I was just getting ready to start walking when a guy stopped and offered me a lift down the road where I called the RAC. 
Eventually my van was taken to a garage who were not very optimistic about the chances of repair. Apparently the bearings had worn out and this had caused the problem, but a lot of damage had been done too. They spent a few hours calling around suppliers and scrap yards in Ireland & Europe to try and get the parts that they needed but nothing was coming up. They dropped me "across the road" at this point to the pub where I got some lunch and was told to come back in an hour. Because I had been signing all the official RAC stuff while they were driving I didn't actually notice how far we had gone, so on my walk back in the torrential rain I found out that "across the road" was actually a 40 minute walk by which time I was squelching with every step. When I got back to the garage they still had no parts and were looking into getting it towed back to Guernsey under my RAC cover.That night Fr Michael kindly offered me a bed again. In my wet state the day before I had forgotten to leave the ignition keys with the garage so on Thursday I took the bus back to the town of Enniscorthy, which is where my van was, to drop off the keys and book into a B&B. Luckily that afternoon the garage called to say that they had finally managed to source the parts locally and that the repairs would be finished by Friday evening. So I spent the rest of that day exploring the city, and the next day exploring some of the hills that surround it.
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