Kenmare Bay Hotel

Well this morning we woke to heavy heads and grey skies. A quick brekkie and we were off on the bus once more. We drove along the Dingle peninsula for a while, which some breathtaking cliffs and scenery. At one stage we got off the bus to take some photos, and Mike closed the doors and drove a little way down the road - enforcing some fresh air and exercise! We also got the opportuinity to climb a rather large hill, covered in sheep ...

... and rivers - true postcard stuff. The weather again has been smiling on us and we enjoyed blue skies all day.

Michael our tour guide has continued to be a wealth of knowledge - in addition to the fairy stories, he's also told us legend of the white horses of Ireland and filled us in on the Potato Famine, which went for about 5 years and killed up to half of the Irish population - through disease, starvation or dying on the ...

We spent the day driving from Dublin to Blarney and Killarny. All we wanted to do in Ireland was kiss the Blarney Stone in Blarney, but unfortunately we are not wired to take long walks in the pouring rain so the most we could do was pull upto the gates and creep. We continued on to Killarney which is the cutest little city ever...cobblestone streets, super nice people, beautiful little restaurants and bistros, cars parked on sidewalks. We ...

... appearance. Our first stop was the Staigue Stone Fort. It was incredibly well preserved. As the name implies, it was built of stone, but with no mortar. We met people from Colorado and Maine (formerly of Medina) there. They were all trying to beat the buses, too.

After exploring around the fort, we drove to the town of Portmagee and had lunch in a bar. It’s Sunday, and a lot of places are closed, but we’ve found that there’s always a ...

... it. We had nursing calves, lumbering cows, and a few randy bulls. The car in front of us finally got a little room to squeeze through, and we were soon able to follow. By then, we needed a break, so we stopped in a little bar for some tea and watched all the locals come in from a funeral. It looked like it was going to be quite a party, but the Beara called.

We followed the road to the end of the peninsula, or as far as we could go on land. There is a cable car ...

... to pick us up.

We again stopped at the seal rocks, which were beginning to disappear with the incoming tide, then returned to the mainland.

We then drove to the Glengarriff National Park and Oak Forest. They have a waterfall walk, so we took it. The waterfall wasn’t huge, but it was a nice walk through the forest before we headed for Kenmare.

On the way to Kenmare we passed the Lorge Chocolatier, out in virtually the middle of nowhere. We stopped in ...

... to practise their rally car skills needs to do this first part of the ring of Kerry!

Up on Lady's view we had a perfect view back along the way we came.. we had lunch at Waterville, what would be a very lovely sea side village in the summer! lol. The day was quite mild but the water was freezing!!

Back around the other side reminded me of Scotland with the wild mountains and mist!!

This ...

... was on the right side of the car since they drive on the left side. I had to drive around the parking lot a few time to get used to shifting with my left hand. Once we got on the main road back to Killarney I asked Michelle to say every 5-10 seconds "stay on the left side." We got there without a hitch and I was even starting to get used to the different driving style. Our hostel was actually located in Kenmare, about 30 minutes ...

Travel Tip # 29: Coming home with **** on your shoe and blood on your shirt doesn't necessarily mean it was a bad voyage. And so it began when a small Canadian girl from Eastern Canada arrived on Irelands shores... met another small Canadian girl from Western Canada....They both love beer. We begin this tale at the Beerfest in the Franciscan Well Brewery in Cork. Rachel met a French guy from Brittany in her hostel and they got to talking about what each was doing in ...

... and a joke or two, we even managed to get a discount on our bike hire. Although I think it may have been more to do with the fact that the vendor wanted to get rid of the mad Aussie chicks who were laughing themselves silly with such witticisms as "What's red and looks like a bucket?". Inis Mor is gorgeous, and I'm glad we pushed ourselves to make the ride up to the Dun Aengus fort as the cliffs were fantastic and I also got my only glimpse of ...