Driving the Rings

Our landlady, Triona, told us yesterday that if we could see the hills from our bedroom then we had a chance of having a great day driving the Rings - that is the Ring of Kerry and the Skellig Ring.

Today, for the first time since we’ve been in Ireland, we saw the sun - I opened the curtains and there it was, and the mountains were clear as day.

After a very nice cooked breakfast we headed out drive the Ring of Kerry and the Skellig Ring. These are well known and popular tourist routes, mainly because they have some of the most spectacular scenery you will see in Ireland.

In line with many Irish roads we’ve driven, they are not very wide, not very good and you can’t see very well. Lots of cautious poking the nose around tight bends on pavements that are only about three metres wide with the very real chance of a car coming the other direction. In lots of places we had to pull over as tight to the side of the road as we could while another car squeezed pass. To complicate things, the other thing the Irish do is let the roadside vegetation grow right up to the edge of the pavement and basically just trim it back at that point. This not only limits the view to the side of the road, but also around beds, and also means there’s not much space to pull to the side of the road if a car comes the other way. Even worse if it’s a tractor.

Nevertheless the scenery was absolutely spectacular. A couple in particular were the area around Portmagee and on Valenti Island (including an old stone fort),  particularly from the top of Geokaun Mountain (Shepherds View).

The views around the end of the peninsula were outstanding as well.

Over all, today was absolutely some of the best scenery I think I’ve ever seen. We’ve included just some of the photos here to give you a feel for what it looks like. If you’re ever in Ireland, make sure you do this drive. 

It was a longish day with the occasional shower including one that made us nick into a cafe for lunch to avoid the rain. A very nice lunch it was too. 

We got back to our B&B about 5:00. And despite having had at least five or six teas today already, Leanne needed one as soon as she walked in the door.

After a nice relax we headed out to wander up the Main Street of Kilarney looking for somewhere to have dinner. There’s certainly a lot of choice here for a town that’s only got 13,000 residents ,  it has dozens and dozens of places to eat. Neither of us were particularly hungry so we settled on Mizu, a Japanese restaurant and had a really really nice meal. The sushi and sashimi were fantastic the gyoza tasted beautiful and the tempura prawns were excellent.

All in all today was a really, really good day. And to top it all off Leanne is starting to feel a bit better as the antibiotics kick in.

Off to the Dingle Peninsula and Limerick tomorrow.