Frank's Road Trips: September 2013

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Ireland Road Trip, Day 7, September 28, 2013

Last night Babs and I were watching TV around nine and my IPhone was charging. All of a sudden there was a bang, a flash of fire, and all of the lights went out. When I got my flashlight out, I saw that the IPhone charging cable had blown out of the charger. I called the front desk and it took about 20 minutes and four trips by the night clerk fooling with various fuse boxes to correct the problem. That was our excitement for the night!

The weather was overcast but dry when we headed out for a drive around the Dingle Peninsula. Thankfully the roads started out as "normal", meaning the equivalent of a two way road, at least until we got onto the Dingle loop.

The Dingle Peninsula offers some spectacular sea coast vistas, as well as open range land, livestock and mountains. Our first stop was a place on the coast where there was large area of beach flanked by cliffs on one side..

The countryside is patchwork of hedge rows, cattle and sheep.

Because it is a peninsula we continue to get great views of the coast line. It is now raining fairly hard .

Roadside Shrine

As we get closer to the town of Dingle, the road narrows and the terrain flattens out some.

Water caves in the rocks

Dingle has a large waterfront filled with fishing boats. We stopped in Dingle for a bathroom break and to shop a little. We all got hotdogs from the Dingle Dog House, hot but that's about all that can be said for eating a hotdog in the rain.

From Dingle we took the ferry over to get to Ennis in County Claire.It was a large ferry that took both cars and semi-trucks.

After exiting the ferry we once again were on narrow roads that would be classified as one lane in the US. The main neighbors of the roads were cattle.

Across from our hotel was this church that had a hand as art in public places that children were playing on.

Tonight was Katy & Roberts birthday. Robert didn't come to Ireland so we will celebrate with him later. We all went to dinner, separate checks, and had a fantastic dinner. Jason and I had steak, Babs Monk fish, Joan Fish & Chips, not sure what Jim had, and Katy had lamb chops. We surprised Katy with a desert with a candle and the servers sang happy birthday.

Tomorrow we move to a castle.

Babs Says:You never know who you'll meet in a pub.

Ireland Road Trip, Day 6, September26, 2023

We are still in Killarney today. Yesterday we did the drive around "The Ring of Kerry", today we will see virtually the same scenery except from a boat and horse drawn cart. We met or guide at Castle Ross a medieval castle built by the O'Donoghue family in the 15th Century.

We will cruise the three lakes in the middle of The Ring of Kerry and end up at a the end of the small lake. Our guide was a a policeman working a second job.

All along the lake shore were mountains, most of which were rugged.

The first bridge we crossed under was the "wishing bridge" which was 400 years old. The summer had been dry and the water level was very low with the bottom of the boat hitting the bottom under two of the bridges.


The "Wishing Bridge"


Old stone bridge

At one bridge the water was so low that we had to exit the boat, hike through the woods, cross the bridge and re-enter the boat. While we made our hike, the boats pulled each other under the bridge.

Boats had to be pulled through the bridge

Woods we had to walk through


Katy helping me keep from falling

From this point, it was only 15 minutes to the end of the boat trip. When we were almost to the end of the trip, our guide spotted this golden eagle in this tree.

Ireland's eagle population was extinct until 400 chicks were brought in from the Netherlands year before last. Only a few survived when released to the wild. Another 400 were released last year and the survival rate increased dramatically.

We crossed this old bridge to meet our horse drawn carts. that would take us up to about the 2000 foot elevation and through the notch. Our driver was a genuine Irishman named Daniel. His cart was pulled by his 15 years old hourse Sally. He owns 3 horses and breaks, trains, and shoes his own animals. He is a third generation cart driver.


Our driver Daniel

The mountain scenery is spectacular and the road, just barely wide enough for two carts to pass. At some points the grade is so steep there are switchbacks and the drivers get out and walk. At one point Katy & Jason had to get out and walk also. Babs & I were spared because of our age.