Wanderung 34

Voyage to the Emerald Isle

April - May 2018


 

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Sunday May 20, 2018: Ireland Day 7

Ring of Kerry

We had been informed, erroneously as it turned out, that all the tour buses run clockwise around the loop road called the Ring of Kerry, so we decided to drive it also in that direction so that we would not constantly be passing big buses on narrow roads. The tour buses were in fact coming the opposite way (counter-clockwise), so we still had to pass them, which was a con. But by circling clockwise around the peninsula, we were on the outside edge of the road nearest to the shoreline, which made it easier to pull off and enjoy the view or to take pictures.

To drive around the ring in that clockwise direction, however, we first had to drive through Killarney and around the southern shore of the adjacent lake to get to the lower edge of the peninsula. Driving through Killarney was unexpectedly slow because the streets were clogged with "jaunting carts", horse-drawn carts like surreys that carry tourists into the adjacent Killarney National Park and to Ross Castle. So I had to patiently follow those carts through the city and then every so gently try to pass them so as to avoid spooking the poor horses.

Once past the entrance to the national park, I thought I was free of hindrances but I was very much mistaken. A bicycle group had taken advantage of the Spring weather to schedule a bicycle race using some of the Ring of Kerry roads. So I spent another half hour or so either slowly following bicycles or very, very carefully passing the clusters of bicycles in the racing peloton. I'm a bicyclist myself and very much appreciate how threatening a 2-ton automobile can be when it passes you too close and too fast, so I tried to avoid doing that to any of these Irish bicyclists. Once past the peloton I thought I was finally home free, when I suddenly saw sheep wandering across the road! Argh! Fortunately, these were older sheep who were calm and tended to stay at the side of the road rather than the rambunctionous young lambs who wander all over the place.

But in betwixt and between, we would pull off to stop and admire the scenery, which was just as magnificent as I vaguely remembered from our first visit back in 2005 on Wanderung 9. The weather today was solid overcast with occasional drizzle or rain, so the landscape looked somber and somewhat forbidding rather than bright and cheerful as it would on a sunny day, I think.

As we went further out along the southern coast of the peninsula, we finally left the bicycle race behind, and after that I only had to cope with the occasional bicycle tourers, who were identifiable by their heavily-packed and loaded bicycles. We found some of the roads traversed small patches of forest, but the rugged coastline was typically being used for pasture if anything, as it was far too rocky and uneven for agriculture. The rocks had been, however, used by the earliest inhabitants of Ireland to make monuments, and we saw one of the "Standing Stone" monuments in a farmer's field. It was a curious straight row of large stones put upright into the earth, although no one is exactly certain why those early folks contructed such things (a guess is the row of stones was used as an astronomical sun calendar).

We also had glimpses of bays of the Atlantic Ocean and in one town, a small but quite nice white, sandy beach. A couple of shoreside areas had been converted to campgrounds, and at one small roadside grocery store we stopped to buy some potato chips and soft drinks for a snack.

That gave us the energy to continue around the far end of the peninsula and start to return along its northern shore. The overcast ceiling was quite low, so when we gained even a couple hundred feet of elevation, we entered the base of the clouds and were essentially driving in a thick fog! I was very glad the Irish drivers and other tourist drivers all had their lights on for that part of the loop.

When we finally got around to the northern coastline, we found it was much less rugged than the southern one, with what looked like old river deltas or alluvial plains between the shore and the interior mountains. That level land and good soil allowed for more agriculture and in turn more population than we saw on the southern coast. As a result, we found sizable towns and villages on the northern side and stopped in Killorglin to find a comfortable place for lunch.

The roads on the northern side are also more level, more straight, and wider than those on the southern side, so the afternoon driving was quite a bit easier and quicker than the morning driving had been. We returned to the Killarney area already around 3 o'clock, but we all thought that was way too early to stop for the day.

So we decided to see Ross Castle, a real defensive fortress in the form of a tall, square tower built in the 1400s.The walkway from the parking lot to the castle had a line of dinghies moored in the river feeding the lake, and they were very pretty although I couldn't quite figure out what the dinghies were actually used for.


 

But when we got to the entrance in the base of the castle, we found out that the only way to visit the interior of the castle nowadays is to join a guided tour. Unfortunately for us, the last tour was at 5 o'clock and we really didn't want to wait that long. Instead, we read all the exhibits in the free museum at the entrance and then walked around the exterior of the castle, which is quite impressive. Apparently, it was taken once by force in the time of Oliver Cromwell because he shipped some canons across the lake and threatened to simply blow down the doors.

Working our way back into Killarney, we again parked at the Tourist Information center's parking lot and walked along the downtown streets until Jerry found us a really nice pub to relax and have a beer (Jerry has a good instinct for that, somehow). The local folks were watching a hurling game between Carlisle and Cork, and we watched along with them while Monika and Jerry enjoyed a Guinness, Linda drank a Coke, and I chose water.

Hurling is an amazingly fast game as it is 90% or more offense and very little, if any, systematic defense. The hurling goal is about the size and shape of a soccer goal but the goal also has two high uprights that point straight up on either side of top bar. This goal setup gives the offense two ways to score: The first is whacking the ball, which looked like a large baseball, through the uprights above the bar (like a field goal in American football), and that counted for 1 point. But the second method of scoring, which was to shoot it below the bar directly into the goal right past the goal keeper, that counted for three points. That difference in point values makes sense because it is MUCH harder to get the ball into the small net area right past the goalkeeper with all your opponents also trying to block you! In the end, Carlisle won the match with a score of 29 points to their opponents' 24 points.

That about wrapped up the day for us as we were all tired out by that point. Returning to the Redwood B&B, we slipped into our rooms for a final evening snack and then turned in for the night.



Copyright 2018 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt


 

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