Castleisland, County Kerry, Ireland
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
oday we were up early as we had a big drive ahead of us trying to tackle the famous ring of Kerry and also out to Dingle and beyond. Niamh was coming with us as although she lives in county Kerry she has never seen the ring of Kerry. As we were leaving her mum gave us a shopping bag full of food and drink for the day which was really nice and then we all piled into moushtasy and headed out. After driving for a wee bot we were finally on the ring. Katherine was reading through a Lonley Planet book on Ireland and there was this island off the ring that sounded really cool. It was basically like mont saint michelle in France. We tried to vet out there but the ferries had already left for the day but we decided to head out to the penisular where the ferry leaves from. However each time I kept on missing the turn so after about 3 attemps we decided that we weren't meant to go as moustashy kept on missing the turn off. We continued along the ring of Kerry and found a spot on the beach to stop for lunch. We set up our buffet once again in the back of moustashy and had a feed. There was a sign on the beach saying that swimming was forbidden by order from the local council. After a stroll along the beach we headed off again and this time the views were getting better as the cliffs rose from the sea. We pulled into a lookout as it must have been good as there were buses there. The view was beautiful and there was a guy selling his honey and had a wee hive there. There was also a bloke there that had a puppy, lamb and what he said was a baby deer. I think he will be very disappointed when his "deer" grows up to find it looks more like a goat! Moving on from here the sceanary was really beautiful and we finally ended up at a avoca cafe on top of a moutain looking out over the ring. After a refreshing cup of tea we decided that we would try and go to Dingle which is on the peninsular north of the ring of Kerry. We arrived at Dingle at about 4 in the afternoon, parked the car and had a look around at this quirky town. A lot of the signs are in Irish (Gaelic) which was pretty cool, went for a walk along the pier. We went into some of the really quirky bars, which is a bar and hardware store in one. You go in and on one side is a bar and on the other is a hardware store. I wonder what you would get if you asked for a screwdriver? We grabbed an icecream from the local store which is famous for it's different flavours such as sea salt hmmm interesting. Since the weather was so good (blue sky once again) we went the long way home going along what we call the ring of Dingle. A ring road that goes out to the end of the peninsula and it was so worth it. The sceanary was a lot more spectacular than the ring of Kerry and if you only had time to do one I would do this as it is x10 better than it's more famous ring. The road is mainly a single windy road so can be a bit hairy at times but hardly anyone goes on it. We just stopped on the road at one point as the view was like a painting and Katherine had a new friend as a seagull just sat on the wall right next to her window. We finished the ring and all decided that it was so much better than the ring of Kerry. Grabbed some Chinese take-away for dinner and got ready for the next day.
