Around the Ring of Kerry – How’s That for the Craic ?

I awoke for my first full day in Ireland, accompanied by the beat of thunderous rain !

Still it wasn’t too bad, as I’d discovered that the campsite had Wifi, and so spent the early part of the morning posting all my blogs, and checking other things..as the rain started easing off…

By mid morning it was relatively dry, so I set off, back through Clonakilty, and along the southern Irish coast, taking in the sights as I went along..I firstly stopped between showers in a lively village called Schull, where they had pinned to a wall, one of the ‘French’ fleets anchors, from the late 1700’s when they intended helping the ‘rebellious Irish’, there was a reasonable selections of craft shops, and art galleries, which I had a brief look around, before dashing back to Wally in a heavy downpour for some lunch, and then onwards along the coast to Bantry, end of the famous Bantry bay ,where it seemed the entire town was attending a funeral at the graveyard up on the cliffs…with cars littering the road all the way into town…

I then turned for Skibbereen, and onto the famous ‘Ring of Kerry’ a scenic circular route, which I was doing the wrong way round, and not all of it, however the sights were still the same, with a lot more traffic,going up over a mountain pass, stopping at ‘Mollys farmhouse’ with her ‘Potain still’ (much as my Dad had described to me!) and through small towns, full of cars,tourists,traffic and onto Sneem, which was packed with coaches,cars and people…so I stopped, wondering what the attraction was ..I think it was ‘half way round’ so they all stopped, with a dramatic river and consequently it was full of ‘trinket shops’ (trash !), at least I had a walk,and an ice cream.. then carried on, by now the roads much quieter, and the scenery becoming a lot more dramatic, as I followed the road along the coast, look down over the sea and cliffs, with lots of little rock islands jutting up in the bays…and the late afternoon becoming quite nice, with hot sunshine..

As I reached a place called Mannix Point, I saw signs for a camp site, and decided to stop for the night (at the right price), and was soon happily pitched looking out to sea, and Valentia island.. I decided to eat out, and had a great meal of local mussels and lamb at the Ring of Kerry Hotel, washed down with a couple of pints of Guinness (well,I had to !), then back to the campsite to watch the sun go down…spectacular, before to round the day off…a music saisun, of around a dozen musicians sat around on the lawn outside the camp office, joining together in impromptu music, with peat fires burning (to keep the midgies away!)…Great, what an end to the day, I can still hear the music now, almost midnight…Goodnight !