A Day of Relaxation and Recovery


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Europe » Ireland » County Kerry » Gap of Dunloe
November 5th 2006
Published: November 6th 2006
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Erin the Bear at Kate Kearney's CottageErin the Bear at Kate Kearney's CottageErin the Bear at Kate Kearney's Cottage

We parked here at Kate Kearney's cottage for the walk up to the Dutch 4 geocache. Erin is traveling around to landmarks in Ireland so we snapped his picture here.
We stayed up pretty late last night watching television. Since Ireland falls within the European Union, most of the shows come from England and Scotland. We watched their version of “American Idol” except it’s called “The X Factor” and the rules are a little different. We watched a couple movies while the laundry was finishing up and then we went to sleep around 2am or so.

This morning we slept in late and just sat around the house and relaxed. Last night at the grocery store, we picked up some pastry wrapped sausage bites and Robert made them for breakfast. Their food doesn’t come precooked, it is made from scratch and then you bake it up nice and hot. I ate one of my yogurts, the Valentia Orange Cream, and it was delicious. They make their yogurt with fresh fruit pieces mixed in, in this case the orange pulp, and mix it up with some Channel Island whipping cream, and there you have it, an 11 grams of fat delicious yogurt that is sinfully yummy.

We didn’t end up leaving the house until 2pm. Our plan was to hit two geocaches in the general area. The first being Dutch 4
The Gap of Dunloe-Way UpThe Gap of Dunloe-Way UpThe Gap of Dunloe-Way Up

The mountains reflected so beautifully in the still waters of the little lakes scattered up there.
up near the Gap of Dunloe and the other Ninestar004 near the entrance to Killarney National Park. The geocache details said to park at the Kate Kearney cottage and walk up the lovely 2.5km to the location. Well, let me tell you this, whoever said it was 2.5km was smoking a crack pipe. When we parked the car, it said 3.65 kilometers as the crow flies and that wasn’t the route available to us. From the time we left the car until the time we got back was 2 hours and I was tired!

The sign at the cottage says that the road is mainly restricted to the use of jaunting cars, bicyclists, horses, and pedestrians and cars heading for businesses and accommodations. So my retarded ass told Robert to park at the cottage with everyone else and we’d hike in. I should have just let him drive on because that was a very long, albeit beautiful walk. There were lots of cars zipping up and down the very narrow road.

We were unable to locate the cache because my silly arse didn’t look at the spoiler pic/hint that was given so I didn’t know which two big
Fixer UpperFixer UpperFixer Upper

We found this little place on our way up the hill, a definite fixer upper if I've ever seen one.
rocks that the cache was hidden in-between. Considering that the landscape was scattered with rocks and our GPS had an accuracy of 40 feet, it was difficult to inspect every single group of rocks and look for our cache. We finally gave up and went to head back. Then my overly-intelligent boyfriend, his words, realizes that he has left the keys in the car ignition so we stepped lively on our way back to the car, hoping that it would be sitting right where we left it. Thankfully it was, thank goodness for rural areas.

We drove over to Killarney to get some groceries and use the internet. And wouldn’t you know it? My little sister has to go into labor two weeks early so that I miss the birth of my first nephew and the passage into aunt hood. I have been waiting for this days for years, years because I didn’t want them to be young mothers. I feel like such a horrible sister to be vacationing in Ireland while my sister is going through labor. She was there for the birth of both my girls and now this. Oh well, even if I could catch a
The Long Road BackThe Long Road BackThe Long Road Back

I took this pick at the place where we stopped to turn around, it's a long way back to where we started.
flight home now, there is no way I’d make it home in time. The flight takes over 10 hours and then the drive up from San Francisco home is another 8 hours. So I am just going to have to accept the fact that he’s be a week old before I get to meet him. So instead I bought the Ireland newspaper for today so he can have something to mark the occasion.

Perhaps tomorrow we’ll go back and hit that geocache again, driving this time and armed with the picture of which two big rocks, lol. I need a couple days to recuperate. My feet are killing me from walking all over Dublin and I need to be fit in order to hike the summit of the mountains before we leave on Saturday. We made a simple dinner tonight, some chicken roulettes that we picked up in the store and baked along with some garlic potato gratin. We relaxed in front of the television to watch a couple movies.



Additional photos below
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Identify this BirdIdentify this Bird
Identify this Bird

I think it's a heron? Anyway, he was following us for a part of the journey.
Sun Setting Over Gap of DunloeSun Setting Over Gap of Dunloe
Sun Setting Over Gap of Dunloe

By the time we hiked in and then headed back, the sun was starting to set over the mountaintops.


6th November 2006

Car Keys
Glad you waited till we were home to do that. Also glad you didn't lock the car. That wouldn't have been good either. Your pictures are gorgeous and I am jealous that we had to leave. My body is still trying to run on Ireland time. Oh and I almost drove on the wrong side of the road on my way home! Oops.

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