Thursday, 7th August                                                    BALLYDEHOB - SKIBBEREEN - SHEEP'S HEAD

Robyn writes: First job this morning was to put on a load of washing as soon as I got up - we won't have self-catering for two weeks from Saturday and finding clean clothes is going to be a real pain, so I'm trying to get everything clean and dry when we leave. Not easy without a drier in this climate! Anyway, it was a lovely sunny morning so the clothes were hung out and fingers crossed as we drove away.

Our first stop was back to the Heritage centre at Skibbereen, where Margaret, the family history lady, had been checking out the Connolly family locally for Lex. She had found two families at Shronagree which seem to match, so that's looking good! I went across to the hotel where I'd been able to access the internet the other day, but unfortunately today it just wasn't working properly - and I'd paid nearly 5 Euros ($7.50AUS) for a cup of tea so I could sit there and use it. Not happy!

As soon as Lex had finished, we popped into the EuroSpar supermarket again to get a few groceries (including an all-important bottle of Kilbeggan Irish Whiskey!) then headed back to Ballydehob. On the way, we called into the Abbeystrowrey Cemetery on the outskirts of Skibbereen which is very old, on the site of the old abbey. It also holds the mass graves of about nine thousand famine victims. Horrific and harrowing to contemplate. As I've said before, Skibbereen is famed as the worst affected area in the Great Hunger.

Believe it or not, this plot holds around 9000 famine victims

Above and Below - lovely views of Roaringwater Bay, just near Ballydehob

Once home, we had lunch, then headed out to do the "Sheep's Head" drive. This is on the peninsular between us and Bantry Bay. We have no idea why it's called the Sheep's Head - saw lots of sheep there though! We drove down the eastern side of the peninsular first, through a few little townships and past lots of (of course) beautiful scenery. Down at the very bottom it was really rugged - we drove first up to the old signal station, parked and walked up the hill - which just kept going up, up, up - you'd get over the crest of what you thought was the top, then there was another height beckoning! I bailed after a while, NOT being a keen climber - Lex would have liked to have kept going but very kindly agreed to give up.

Track at the Sheep's Head Signal Station

Lex made it out to the lighthouse

Sheep on the Sheep's Head!

Looking towards Bantry Bay

That's not Paris, that's Dunmuras Bay!

In the middle of nowhere - a roadside shrine

Then we got back to the car and headed for the Sheep's Head lighthouse - along tiny, mountainous, winding little single-lane roads (such fun when you meet oncoming traffic!). It felt like we were at the end of nowhere, then we suddenly arrived at a parking area, cafe and toilets - and cars everywhere! Ireland is quite amazing like that. Anyway, the walk to the lighthouse was 2km, so I quite happily sat in the cafe with a cuppa and my computer to write the blogs, while Lex did the walk out there, which he greatly enjoyed.

When he got back, we headed off again, back up the western side of the peninsular alongside Bantry Bay this time. We stopped at a lookout where you could see the bays on either side, then headed north. We stopped again at a lovely little pottery shop and bought a house number for home made by local potters. All in all it was a very enjoyable drive, interspersed as usual with moments of sheer terror (like when we met a tractor on a narrow bend on a high mountainous road...)

We got home to find that all of our washing was dry, so have since been relaxing. Tomorrow is our last full day in Ballydehob so there will be more washing and packing to do before we leave for Galway on Saturday.

Wednesday, 6th August RING OF KERRY

Robyn writes: It's been a huge day! We set the alarm for 7.30 so we'd be sure to be up and about early - it's all too easy to sleep in here. Our aim for the day was to do the Ring of Kerry, the famous scenic road loop in County Kerry. We'd been warned that "traffic is bumper to bumper there in summer", and after our experiences at the weekend, we took that seriously enough to leave early and go in the middle of the week in hopes of avoiding too much traffic.

We managed to leave around 9, and headed for Kenmare, our first stop on the ring. The map very nicely requested traffic on that route to travel in an anti-clockwise direction, so from there we went up to Killarney and around down the western coast of the peninsular first. The road goes through some incredibly rugged mountains and there are even several small 'tunnels', really stone arches chipped through the rock.

Spectacular scenery. As usual.

Amazing views from the café where we had morning tea

Cute mountain sheep at Moll's Gap

Lakes of Killarney (above and below)

We were very lucky with the weather - it was overcast at times but no rain, and for a lot of the day we had bright sunshine. The scenery all along is just as spectacular as everyone had said. We had travelled some of the road in 2006 but then it began to get dark just after we left Glengarriff, so we missed the really amazing sights of the mountains and lakes. This time we got them in all their glory and stopped many times to take photos and drink in the views. In fact, it's all so amazing that after a while you get used to it and your reaction is:

"Ho hum, another azure blue bay with dazzling skies above and wild mountains plunging down into the bay with the occasional gorgeous little white Irish cottage dotted about for effect.....same old, same old!"

We took a detour off the ring to call in and see Castle Ross, near Killarney. This is a lovely castle on a lake we decided we'd better go and see for Wayne, Ellie and Livvie Ross. We felt quite jealous as we haven't come across either a Cuskelly or Thompson Castle on our travels! It was built in the first half of the 15th century for the O'Donoghue clan and is a great example of the Irish tower house that you see everywhere (most are in ruins but this one is in very good condition). Being holiday time, it was packed with tourists everywhere - trips in horsedrawn carriages seemed particularly popular and we turned several down. There were also boat trips leaving from the nearby dock out onto Lough Leane which looked lovely, but we might not have had enough time to do that and finish the ring.

Castle Ross, near Killaryney

Above and below: Waterville views

We could see the Skellig Islands

Stunning scenery all along the way

Another diversion was at Molly's Gap, up high in the mountains, where we'd stopped last time. Then it was getting dark, and we'd grabbed a hot drink and kept going, but this time we went upstairs to the lovely cafe with one of the best views in Ireland and had a very nice morning tea there. There's also a lovely huge gift shop downstairs with genuine Irish weaving and a loom display, and we enjoyed looking around at it and doing a bit of gift shopping. We seem to always lead the rush - when we parked to go in, we were about the second car in the parking lot; when we came out there were cars everywhere trying to squeeze in!

For the rest of the day, we continued our (appropriately anti-clockwise) progress around the ring, stopping in lots of places to admire the beaches, bays and mountains. Hard to tell which were the prettiest! No wonder this is one of the tourist meccas of Ireland. We stopped for lunch at a lovely little roadside cafe then continued on. From Waterville, which is a seaside town at the very bottom of the peninsula, we could see the two Skellig islands. They've just finished filming some scenes from the new Star Wars sequel on Skellig Michael, but there were no jedis in sight! We were lucky enough to miss most of the heavy traffic; it wasn't until around 4 when we were back near Kenmare that the traffic really slowed down (we got stuck behind a tourist bus and it all piled up from there - winding roads you just can't pass on).

We finished the ring just after 4 o'clock and were heading back towards Ballydehob when we saw a sign to the Bonane Heritage Park, which contains a prehistoric site plus some famine ruins, so we headed off the road and in to it. It cost us 4 Euros each and was a 2km walk up the hill (WHY did prehistoric people always build on hills???) which I wasn't impressed with at the time, but once we were up there the scenery was wonderful and the monuments were very interesting. There was a stone age fort, complete with the usual 2 ditch defence, which had a commanding view of the valley - they would've seen anyone coming miles away! During the famine, the poor locals were desperate enough to try growing their potatoes in the fort, which had never been used for agriculture as it was a bit of a sacred site locally. You can still see the ridges from their planting. (No word on whether it worked but I assume the potatoes were affected just as badly there as anywhere else.) There was the ruin of a peasant's stone hut, abandoned in the 1840s during the famine. There were a few standing stones and a whole stone circle which was aligned with the solstices and a huge rock "altar" of standing flagstones on a hill nearby. There was also another set of stone ruins which to us looked like possibly another famine-era remain, but strangely there was no information anywhere about it, so we can only theorize what it was. It was a very interesting walk and amazing views of the mountains and valleys around us.


Me in the ruins of the cottage

Prehistoric ring fort
 

Finally, we headed home around 6.30 - still broad daylight and a lovely warm, sunny evening. Unfortunately we got back to Ballydehob to find that the Community Fair we'd been hoping to get to (it started at 2.30) was all over and the hall packed up. A shame, it would have been nice to go to it and chat to some locals. Anyway, I made a nice chicken curry and we flopped in a heap after a big day out.