April 12 - Down to the dungeon, quick - get the sheep!, and Sshhhh shhhh shhhh!

April 12 - Down to the dungeon, quick - get the sheep!, and Sshhhh shhhh shhhh!

Friday we drove the Ring of Kerry. which I thought sounded like a volcanic ring (Ring of Fire, anyone?). This beautiful 175k drive circles the whole of the Iveragh peninsula, and everyone had told us how beautiful it was and that its not to be missed. Nothing could have prepared us for the wild beauty of this place! First of all, the weather was absolutely stunning. Blue sky, shining sun, birds singing, etc. We breakfasted at the hotel and then headed out on the drive. Once again we had grand plans of getting up really early and heading out, but we ended up leaving at around 10. The entire drive was beautiful, but I'll pick out some particularly high points below.

Cahersiveen - we took the turnoff at this pretty little town because we saw on our map that there were stone forts and a beach out on the tip of the land. What we didn't expect to find was a marvelous ruined castle - Ballycabbery Castle.  this was here another castle that was blown  up by Cromwell's forces. This castle was blown up from the inside out. We saw it from the road, and pulled in to find only one other car there. We had to duck under some barbed wire to get in, which countless other people had clearly done as well, as the wire was bent up. The castle had incredible views of the mountains, the ocean, the bay, the Skellig islands, the fields, the everything! It was a wonderful edifice, with only a few walls remaining, but plenty to climb around on and explore. We climbed up to the upper level, and then down to the lower as well. The lower level was pretty far down a scary staircase, and we referred to it as the dungeon! It totally felt like descending down to the dungeon level. All that was missing were rats, slimy walls, and a sinister jailer.  The steps from the stair case down to the floor were gone, so we had to do a pretty significant drop of about 10 feet down. Once in the room, we could easily see that this was the main living area, rather than a dungeon. We took lots of photos here, and then went to the beach!
The beach was sandy and the water was the most beautiful blue. It was easy to picture coming to this lovely little beach on a warm summer day, spending time lazing on the beach and swimming in the waves and enjoying a picnic. Oh bliss! We must come back. We found some pretty little shells and saw some very sandy and very happy dogs going for walks.

After this we headed back inland and went across to Valentia island. We had our first real view of the Skellig Islands at this point, which if we had been better advance planners, we would have taken a boat to. Alas, you have to book at least on day in advance and they only operate May through the end of September. One on Valentia Island, we drove the loop around it  (its a very short loop). This included a trip to the top of the highest peak, Geokaun Mountain, which had some absolutely breathtaking views! We also saw the Fogher Cliffs from here. The views of the mainland and the Skellig Islands were amazing from here. We saw that castle that we had explored earlier,  as well as the beach we walked on. While at the top of the mountain, Brandon tried to pet a sheep. At first it was going well, Brandon was walking toward the sheep and the sheep looked pretty oblivious, happily eating some grass. Suddenly the sheep must have caught his scent, because it started running away! Brandon half heartedly chased after if for a few minutes, and then gave up. We WILL pet sheep on this trip! I really want to pet a lamb - there are so many of them and they are so cute! Anyway, that was our sheep adventure for the day.

We then drove down to Knightstown, where we grabbed a bite of lunch in the Royal Pier pub. We shared a smoked salmon sandwich with cream cheese, capers, and lettuce as well as a tomato basil soup. Delish and refreshing! We then headed back across the bridge to the mainland, and picked up the smaller loop of the Ring of Skellig. This runs around the most westerly promontory of the Iveragh peninsula, passing through the wildly beautiful St Finan's Bay. While driving this jaw droppingly beautiful route, we came upon a wonderful surprise - the Skellig Chocolate Factory! We went in for a taste and ended up leaving with loads of chocolate! It was all so yummy. We bought a mixed bag of truffles, a bag of chocolate covered marshmallows, and a bar of sea salt chocolate. Oh my goodness! What a treat. We finished this smaller Ring, which included some rather hair raising steep roads and narrow lanes. It was wonderful, especially with the clear blue sky. We came back into Killarney via the park, and passed the Ladies View once again. We stopped at Torc Waterfall and did the short hike to view it - very reminiscent of the waterfalls in Oregon and Washington. Heading back into Killarney we decided to stop at the Ross Castle. It was closed when we got there, but we had a really nice walk around the grounds and along one of the paths into the forest. The castle was built in the late 15th century by one of the O'Donoghue Ross chieftains, who ruled the Killarney region then. The castle is on the shores of Lough Leane, the Lower Lake of the three in Killarney.

After this we went back to our hotel and cleaned up for the evening. Since it was Friday night, we decided to walk into town to try and find some local music as well as dinner.  We went to a pub called The Laurels, which had really good pub food. Brandon had fish and chips, and I had the potato cakes. They were AMAZING! Potato cakes with a creamy mushroom bacon gravy. It may not sound like much, but they were simple and delicious and something completely different from anything we've had! I loved every bite. After this we went to the Killarney Grand, which was advertising live music at 9:00 and 11:00. We listened to the acoustic set at 9, which was a bodhran, accordion, and sometimes guitar. They were really good, and the place was absolutely packed, mostly with tourists (lots of Americans with cameras round their necks). We ended up grabbing a table with some really nice people from Ontario, Canada and talking with them for a while. At 11:00 the big band came on. It was a proper Irish rock band - the usual drums and guitars, but also an amazing fiddler and banjo player! They were really really good, and it wasn't too long before we were all on the dance floor, dancing and singing along. By this point it was mostly locals - we saw some mighty interesting dancing! We stayed out really late, dancing to this band and having fun with the nice Canadians. After taking a taxi back to our hotel, we practically collapsed into bed as it was nearly 3 am! Whew.

The next day we were driving to Ennistymon, a small town near the Cliffs of Moher.  We decided to drive the Dingle Peninsula, and unfortunately it wasn't that great. Now, I'm sure it can be lovely, but we had a few things working against us. The weather was awful - it was pouring rain and cloudy and extremely windy, and we were exhausted from staying up so late the night before! We saw some nice views and some interesting history, but we decided to head to our hotel in Ennistymon pretty quickly. Unfortunately our decision and tiredness led to us missing the Lough Gur, a prehistoric site that we had really been looking forward to visiting. It has lots of megalithic ruins as well as a large standing stone. Of course we didn't realize that we had forgotten it until we reached our hotel around 7:00 pm and it was much too late to go back. Darn!!! We've put it on the list for next time.
Ennistymon was a really cute small town, situated on a river with some pretty small falls. The hotel was fairly large, but they did a good job of not letting it feel that way. We ate in the hotel restaurant since we were so tired! The food was actually really good, and we had the benefit of sitting with about 3/4 of the town, who were all there to watch a big rugby match! It was so fun to experience the game with them - lots of great things learned. For example, whenever something really big was about to happen, they would all get DEAD silent. Then, they would all start "shushing." You know - "Shhh, shhhhh, shhhh!!!!!" It's such a great experience to watch sports in other countries.

After this it was bed time! Next on the docket - Cliffs of Moher and the Burren!

Loads of love,

Linds