We were lucky that our day of lots of driving was during yesterday's vile weather and lucky that today, when we were planning to go only 50 miles, was a day of sun and showers. We decided to go slowly through the constantly shifting light and stop where the fancy took us.

As soon as we spotted Inch beach - a peninsula jutting out from Slea Head of wide flat sand ridged with dunes - we knew that was where fancy had taken us. A magical two hours walking two miles down the beach and back again, watching the silver sun play on the tops of the waves, retreat to a thin shining line where the sea met the base of the dark hills opposite, vanish into cloud then suddenly dance back. Scudding clouds meant we had two seconds to take a photo before the light had shifted and it was gone. 

We stopped to watch the wind rippling the soft sand by the dunes into new shapes - and found mushrooms growing in the sand at the base of the sea grasses. We watched seabirds scavenging in the sand as retreating waves revealed more food. On our way out we chatted to two fishermen in waders up to their armpits angling for sea bass on the last day of a week-long competition; on our way back we saw them land the biggest one of the week, weigh it at 6.5 pounds, measure it, photograph it then carefully help it get back out to sea.

We thought we'd had a very rich couple of hours when suddenly a low rainbow appeared over the land between the dunes and the hills and hung there.