Day 6 – Ballinskelligs to Kilkee

Up at 7 for another full Irish breakfast at 8 prepared and served by another Birdie – that seems to be the name of choice for B&B proprietors.

We were on the road by 8:30 and conquered the second half of the Ring of Kerry. We have to say that after experiencing the Ring of Beara, the Ring of Kerry left us wanting.  By comparison it was pretty lame, although parts were pretty and yesterday the road to Kilkenny was beautiful (lots of old trees). But if you have to choose one or the other…choose Beara.

We stopped at another really old fort (Dunbeg Fort, c. 500 BC), but they were charging too much for what didn't look like much.

So we enjoyed the view and Erin

enjoyed the horse and cute

donkey.  The visitor center for

the fort was a really cool stone

house.
 

The next stretch took us through Dingle and around the Slea Head loop.

The Dingle Peninsula is gorgeous and we got our first look at a few HUGE cliffs (if you’ve ever seen the movies “Ryan’s Daughter” or “Far and Away”…they were both filmed here and will give you an idea of the beauty).
 

 


Dingle Docks

Around Dingle most of the street/highway/store signs switched over to Gaelic – without much English, navigation became interesting.

At this point in the trip, Erin has become slightly addicted to the map, even with the GPS.

We drove some fun small roads but most of the roads were two lanes and there were too many buses.  Glad we got off early to avoid the peak tour bus times today.

 


Irish Security


These guys had just rounded up a misplaced ram.
 

Next was the Conner Pass that graced us with amazing views of several lakes and some old settlements.


Ruins

 

We rolled into Tralee for a quick internet café fix and lunch at The Town and Country Bar.  The town was packed with tourists and locals on holiday – the town was devoid of the quaintness we were starting to get used to.  It reminded us a little of Gatlinburg – kinda tacky, but the people were fun and the bartender was nice.  Erin had a roast beef sandwich and John had soup for lunch (oh, and a pint each).

A little further up the road we forded our first “river” (ok, not really a river…just a small stream overrunning the road due to overnight rains…but it gave us a laugh since it reminded us of our Costa Rica trip where we really did drive through a river in our rental).  No trip is complete without fording a river, eh?

Driving through Ballycopeland, we discovered an old windmill.  A little further up the road, we saw our first wind farm – very impressive.  We saw three more large (20+ wind turbines) wind farms during our trip.  Ireland is working very hard on alternative energy sources and takes its recycling very seriously.

As we arrived in Tarbert to catch the car ferry to Killimer

it started sprinkling.  Within minutes of boarding the

ferry, the sprinkles became an absolute downpour and

the rain continued for the entire 20 minute ride…but it

stopped raining and was pretty again right about the

time we pulled off the ferry into Killimer.  The weather

gods are on our side so far.
It took about 25 minutes and we were in Kilkee and, though it looked like a nice town, we were hoping to get in early to the B&B so we didn’t stop.

Kilkee first appears on history’s radar in the 14th century.  The first castle was built in the late 1400s.  Up until the mid-1800s it was a fishing village when it started attracting rich folks from Limerick who enjoyed it as a vacation destination and started building summer lodges.  Since then, it has been developed mostly as a tourist destination.

Checked in at Nolan’s B&B around 2:30.  Very nice place.  We spent a couple of hours doing laundry and having a little down time then headed into Kilkee for dinner at The Strand - good mussels, soup and fried mushrooms.

After dinner, since we had about 4 more hours of daylight left, we took a walk along the beach…watching all of the families, dogs, cruising teenagers, and old folks walk, talk, play, fetch, swim, jet ski, boat, practice hurling and rugby, and generally enjoy the “Bank Holiday” at the beach.


No, we didn't try them.

Off the beach and into the pubs!  We did the requisite pub crawl from The Central Bar to O’Mara’s (yea, they got us with the name cause we just had to…well, you know, have another pint) and then to Hickie’s Bar where we broke out the laptop to make some notes from the day and, er, well, have some more pints (Erin has switched to Diet Coke at this point). 

Everybody was watching the GAA game between Wicklow and Laois at the various pubs…so we got a chance to enjoy that.
 

We liked Hickie’s so much we decided to stay…especially after finding out that they had music planned.  We chatted it up with the locals a bit and found out that the guy running the place is the son of the couple who own the place - - - Mom was at the end of the bar enjoying herself.  One of the other bartenders was another local who used to hang out in the bar when he was a kid (tagged along with his folks).  Quite the local/family affair.  We met a wonderful lady who had brought her 81 year old father down for a couple of pints on his birthday.  They were from Limerick and down for the holiday. 
Sometime after 10 pm, we were treated to a beautiful sunset over the bay and then were entertained by Ginger (local musician who played guitar and sang great American singer/songwriter standards).  We headed home a little too late and a little too tipsy.

 

It was very clear why Kilkee is such a popular vacation destination.  It’s the quintessential beach town.

Our word for the day is “lovely” – lost track of how many times we heard that.  A little later in the trip “brilliant” beats out lovely for the word of the day honors.

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