The Ring of Kerry

Tuesday

We drove around the Ring of Kerry in the canonical anti-clockwise direction.

My guidebook recommended going the other way, but our guesthouse manager advised against that: not only would that put us on the wrong side of the road for the views in the gap of Dunloe, but it would also involve passing a lot of cars and tour buses on narrow roads.

We stopped a few times to admire views.

We crossed over to Valentia Island, then stopped (randomly) at a little cemetery above Knightstown.

We then headed for a Tetrapod Trackway, where the trackway itself is not dramatic — without a bit of paleontological imagination — but the setting is very much so. We drove up onto Geokaum mountain to look at the views.

It was cloudy and rather gloomy, with some fog, but the landscapes were still impressive.

The others skipped the Skelling experience, but I paid my four euro and did a quick walk around — there's little in the way of artifacts and not much about Skellig Michael that one couldn't find online (see, for example, this video). It's certainly not a substitute for an actual visit, which would have required another day.

Crossing to Portmagee, we had trouble finding a place for lunch that wasn't packed by the tour bus that arrived just before us and which had a vegetarian option. In the end we just grabbed some bread, ham, cheese etc. from a little supermarket and sat on the quay and ate that.

Driving on, we missed the Eightercua Stone Alignment marked on the map, stopped at Coomakesta Pass for the views (and an icecream from a van), and managed to miss the Derrynane House turn-off (perhaps not a great loss given my companions hadn't even heard of O'Connell). We did, however, find Staigue Fort, which was impressive, the drystone construction having kept so well it looked almost new rather than being 1600+ years old. Then we had cake and drinks in Sneem and it was time to head back, fitting in a stop to admire the view at Ladies View.

Killarney town centre

Driving into Killarney, we could see just how tourist-oriented it was. It seems to be a village turned into a town by tourism, with hotels and B&Bs everywhere on the way in and a plenitude of restaurants and souvenir shops in the centre. We walked around for a while — some bookshops were still open! — and eventually settled on a restaurant.

Next: Ross Castle + Muckross House, Killarney
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