Day 7: Sheepishly Driving the Ring of Kerry

We woke up today with hearts full of song and the wind in our sails.  We had originally planned on seeing Skellig Michael today but that involves a $300 boat trip for only 2 hours on the island so we elected to spend our money and time elsewhere.  We didn’t really have a plan except for the Ring of Kerry which is probably the most touristy area in Ireland.  We ended up just letting Google be our guide and we skipped out on about a third of the busy drive and went diagonally across the peninsula through some crazy mountain roads that I’m quickly falling in love with.  If I had a Porche instead of an Opel I would be grunting along with Jeremy Clarkson on these serpentine mountain roads. 

Google finally found our destination of Ballycarby Castle.  A nice farmer met us there with a docile sheep that he thrust into my arms.  We thought he was being super nice and snapped a few photos but then of course he asked for money.  It was cool to hold a little sheep and the castle was pretty cool.  It was made of three arched-roofed stone buildings with a castle built over top of it and most of it was in pretty good shape still. 

Of course the views around there were stunning so we sat in a clover field and ate our usual bread and cheese lunch that we got from a farmers market. 

Just a km down the road were two ring forts (Leacanabuaile and Cahergall).  Usually I’m pretty indifferent to these oldtimey forts but these ones were pretty amazing.  The first was probably 12 feet tall and still had rooms intact so you could see how their little settlement was set up.  The second fort was even more impressive.  The outer walls were about 16 feet thick.  They had stacked stones up 20+ feet tall and 16 feet thick and then for a doorway they placed 4 massive rocks as lintels, it was a serious work of engineering.  Unfortunately for Cris, the stairway going up wasn’t too scary but for some reason the way down was like a medieval Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

We also stopped at Staigue Fort later on which is a big deal to tourists but isn’t nearly as cool as these other two. 

We continued around the Ring of Kerry with all the tour busses and other tourists and were thinking that it’s really nothing special.  The Beara peninsula from yesterday was way cooler and less busy.  Then we made it to a scenic overlook that blew us away (side note: it’s always super windy here which is getting kinda old).  Mountains were surrounding us, the ocean stretched out below, and the various colored fields scattered around added beautiful colors and textures to create an amazing view. 

Just before we got home we randomly found a small lake that had trout rising on it like crazy.  I got out my rod and tossed a spinner for a while which resulted in a beautiful 14 inch wild rainbow trout.  I called to Cris but just as she got there with the camera I pulled a Robson Green and let that clonker slip through my fingers back to the icy depths. 

Not sure if I’d do ‘The Ring’ again, it’s a lot of driving for maybe 4 very cool things.