Day Six: Kerry

It is time to start the famous Ring of Kerry, but first I have to get there! The ring starts and ends with Killarney which is an hour and a half drive from Cobh. The ring is FULL of places to see and visit so I wanted to make sure I could get there as soon as Killarney House opened at 9:15, so I was out the door in Cobh by 7 am.

Getting out of Cobh at that time of day proved to be a bit of a hazard, between an entire busload of students waiting by the side of one of the tiny roads for their ride, to the morning sun blinding me on the country roads out of town, I was doing good not to kill anyone or myself.

Cork was a short drive away and I hit rush hour pretty spot on, so I got to see Cork out the window. In slow motion. But the highway on the way out of town cranked up to 120 kmh, so I was back up to speed in no time. I stopped right outside of Killarney for gas (always stop for gas) since I was ahead of schedule, and then meandered through the town to Killarney House, which is pretty much in the middle of Killarney. I parked right across the street and walked through the gate into the magnificent lawn and gardens. The view is unbelievable.

This was seriously someone’s front lawn.

I went to get go into the house only to find that they’re short staffed and not open for tours on Mondays and Wednesdays (not that I’m able to keep track of what day it is at this point). Lame.

Of course there are rhododendrons. I’ve yet to be in a proper English, Scottish, or Irish garden and not seen them.

So I got to see the gardens and then headed on the road to the next stop a short ways away at Ross Castle. The Castle itself is a ruin, but it’s situated on Lough Leane and it’s quite pretty. I walked around but didn’t tour since they only take cash. What is with this morning…

This is me falling out of love with looking at ruins. Preserved houses? Always. Any and all ruined buildings that are barely recognizable? Debatable.

Back on the Ring of Kerry road and I immediately got stuck behind FOUR horse drawn carriages. This is going to be a long morning.

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My contribution to slow cinema for the day. The horse hooves have actually worn a rut down the middle of the asphalt.

I finally got around them and back on the road. There are SO MANY stops along the ring that it’s really meant to have you stop when you feel like it, and the next thing I was interested in seeing was Muckross House, a short way down the road from Killarney House.

Muckross House (pronounced: Muckruss) is a hunting lodge in the woods and is quite pretty, if a little rough. There are a LOT of mounted dead things inside. And another Irish elk. Because these monstrous creatures were apparently everywhere. There was a lot of very interesting wall papers and furniture as well.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert stayed here with their children when they visited, so permanent portraits are on display. As I would do as well. They probably spent a fortune entertaining the queen for a weekend…

I walked through the shops on the way out, and they had an actual potter making the pottery they sell in the shop, which I loved.

I found a beautiful pull off that overlooked Lough Leane and got some pictures.

Here I am! I didn’t fall into the lough!

I got back on the road and headed to Sneem in search of a pub that was open early for lunch (ha, what was I thinking…) and then started towards Staigue Stone Fort, which is nowhere near the main road. This was the first excursion down a legitimate one-lane, two-way road and I hadn’t even gotten 20 yards before I encountered a tractor and had to reverse into the road to make way. There are always pull offs as you go, but you really have to pay attention so you don’t end up colliding head on with someone. I took it slow and no one died.

I finally got to the fort and parked the car to walk up. The stone fort is a ruin of a fortification from 300-400 AD and is still sturdy enough to allow people to walk up to the top and walk along it, which I absolutely did. I climbed up and walked along the edge (significantly higher when you’re actually on the top!) and took some photos before even more carefully getting my accident prone self down.

So green. Everywhere. So. Green.

On the short walk back to the car I got phone call that the weather tomorrow was likely going to be crap (the beautiful weather had to end sometime…), and the boat tour I had booked for the morning wondered if I could go on the tour this afternoon at 3 pm, aka two hours from right then. After a brief consult of the map, I told them I was an hour away and would definitely try and get there by three, because Dad and I definitely had our puffin trip cancelled due to bad weather and I really did want to see Skellig Michael if I could.

I had just been planning to lazily spend the rest of the afternoon making my way around the peninsula, since most of the spots I had wanted to see I had already hit, so I made directly for Portmagee and fully hit the speed limits the entire way there (mercifully there were no sheep). By 1:45 I was at port and checked in and got pointed to the Fisherman’s Bar down the road where I could get some late lunch. I had a cider, a shot of the local whiskey, and the best fried calamari I have ever had in my entire life, all in time to get back to my boat by 2:45 (slightly drunk).

Time to see Skellig Michael!

We first stopped off shore of Skellig Bheag (Little Skellig) which is home to tens of thousands of gannets, which nest on the rocky island (but no puffins, since they need top soil to burrow). It’s basically an enormous solid rock that juts out of the ocean and has never been inhabited by anything but birds.

This entire island was basically a teeming mass of wings and screaming.

Further along with got to Skellig Michael which has a Catholic monastery that was inhabited between 600-1200 AD, by what I can only imagine were the most intense introverts who ever lived, because this place is like end-of-the-earth remote. Skellig Michael is also very rocky, but unlike Skellig Bheag has topsoil which the monks used to grow crops and raise sheep. Two lighthouses and traditional pathways and steps were built in the 1800s for safety reason (avoiding shipwrecks) but the only people that live on the island now are guides and ornithologists that visit for two weeks at a time (I assume to count the ten thousand puffins that apparently nest there???) and they all live in huts halfway up the island.

More recently the island has been used as the setting for Star Wars: The Last Jedi—if you recall the island with the porgs (that were almost certainly based on puffins). We did a loop around the island and then headed back to Portmagee. It was a gorgeous day, 70 degrees and sunny, and I was really glad I was able to make it to the port in time to go on the earlier tour. Even if the tour had left as expected in the morning, it would have been miserably cold and wet.

I got back in the car and backtracked a little to get to Waterville, a little coastal beach town that was completely overrun with touring coaches when I went through earlier, but now was lovely and quiet.

I am staying at the Klondyke House B&B and tomorrow is the first day I’m going to actually eat a normal hot breakfast, because the host is making full Irish. And I will never turn down homemade breakfast. Tomorrow is probably going to be damp at some point, so it’s time to say good bye to these shorts.