I went for a late afternoon walk in the hills today. In so many ways it was a big mistake - the weather was not very good with intermittent hail showers and, more worrying, a few bolts of lightning thrown in. I also left it too late really and would have struggled to get back to the car before dusk if a fellow photographer hadn't given me a lift around to my car. Thanks Rob!

I was up seeing three previously visited places and to check out a couple of things I've read up on lately. Despite the weather it was well worth while and I always enjoy meeting people when I'm out and about.

Back on the road again! Any excuse to see how good my new Lowepro camera rucksack is. The verdict? Absolutely brilliant. I hardly knew I was carrying around 10kgs of stuff and with the one climb I had to reach my last site - 70m up a near vertical hillside - I was very glad of it.

The trip was concentrating on revisiting a couple of sites, but I also wanted to reach one that's stayed out of my grasp up until now. I spent a lot of time wondering around Piperstown as well, trying to locate where they excavated in the 1960s. I think I may have found one of the hearths, but can't be certain. I couldn't find anything else to confirm it. The vegitation cover in the vicinity certainly looked different so it is possible that it had been disturbed at some time. What I'd really like is to hear from anyone who knows where the excavations took place.

I was accompanied on part of my journey today by a family of deer. There was a big male with glorious antlers, a younger male and several females wondering around the forest that I kept crossing paths with.

I wanted to see few new sites today to finish off a little corner of Dublin, but I didn't make it to two of them because of the bad weather. I did see three new sites though and revisited an old favourite, which this time would have offered better views if the weather hadn't been so horrible.