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Published: August 17th 2011
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Room with a view
By our lunch venue, the views (in the background) were stunning KILLARNEY
We have visited some awesome places on our travels so far and are having a fantastic time. However if we had to pick a favourite city so far it would be Killarney Ireland. We had never heard of the place prior to leaving New Zealand so it wasn’t on our radar at all, but it is just brilliant. To be fair it is regarded as a tourist Mecca in Ireland and is accordingly well geared up to cater for tourists – the town is full of Pubs and Souvenir Shops!
It is big enough to have all the amenities but has very much retained the character of a traditional Irish city. It also borders a wonderful national park. Today we did the ‘Ring of Kerry’ at trip around the Iveragh peninsula (part of which went through the National Park). We saw the most spectacular scenery, a deer grazing on the roadside, some very nice traditional villages, had lunch in a restaurant on the edge of a ‘cliff’ and finished the trip with a horse and buggy ride though the city and a small part of the national park.
RING OF KERRY
The day started with a visit to
Kerry Bog Village
The most realistic we have seen Moriarty’s –Gap of Dunloe-Killarney-County Kerry. Located 10 minutes out of town It is a specialist quality Irish clothing and souvenir store – as you enter the give you a free Irish coffee to start your day (and I suspect to loosen your wallet - unfortunately it worked!). We bought a small Irish Harp souvenir made from Bog Peat and an Irish work tie (Guinness and Harp) for me.
Next stop was for morning tea at the Red Fox Inn with the option of going to the Kerry Bog Village Museum next door. We decided to have a look at the museum – at 5 euro each it was overpriced but what was there was the most authentic display of machinery and cottages we had seen. There were also some real live Bog Ponies as well (sadly they look far to similar to the race horses I follow for my liking!). Although the whole region to a large extent has a natural unspoilt look about the whole place is definitely not a ‘best kept secret’ there were 12 full size tourist busses parked outside the cafe when we arrived.
Ten minutes down the road we made a quick stop
Donkey man
For 3 hours every day he is in the same spot offering a photo op to tourists to see a man with a donkey on the side of the road. Every day he and his donkey, with a support cast of a chihuahua dog and a girl, they stand in exactly the same place so people can pay a euro and take a photo (good business when you consider the number of tourists around)! Not all the coaches stopped but we did and it was something a bit different to photograph.
Then we continued on around the Ring of Kerry-we went down one side of the Iveragh Peninsula and back up the other – to say the views were spectacular would be a huge understatement. The road followed the coastline and we were treated to beautiful countryside, stunning golden beaches (who would have thought)- in fact Ireland's only beach bar is on the peninsula. Sweeping views from high spots on the road. There was a large boulder at the entrance to a driveway that had Aotearoa carved into it – us Kiwis are everywhere!
For lunch we stopped at a cafe which was perched on top of a cliff with the most amazing views you could imagine.
The last part of the journey went through the
Stunning scenery
From the spectacular coastline to the inland valleys National Park and we even saw a deer grazing on the side of the road. There were beautiful clean lakes where people were boating and fishing (Brown trout and Salmon) plus loads of bush walks - Magic! Speaking of which its apparently where the Leprecauns live - although we didn't see any on our travels.
JAUNTING AROUND
When we returned to Killarney it was straight onto the jaunting carts, horse drawn carts that took us on a loop around the bottom end of the national park and back to our hotel. We got to sit up front with the driver, our horses name was Ebony. The circuit was 5kms and it was good to see some of the beautiful country at a nice slow pace – once again the commentary/banter from our driver was very good and added much to the ride.
DINNER AND SHOW
We were free to do our own thing for dinner so we went out with Roger and Jo Lea, a couple we have become good mates with over the time of our tour. They come from a small town - Bowan in North Queensland – its between Townsville and Cairns. Roger was originally
Jaunting
Jeanette on the jaunting cart from Pahiatua of all places, he moved to Bowan when he was about 20 and now runs a successful building business there.
It was nice to have Chinese for a change – no potatoes (the Irish pretty much have them with everything)!
After tea we joined most of our group for the Liam O’Connor Show, a night of Irish music and dance. O’Connor is regarded as one of the worlds best Squeezebox (Piano Accordion) players, and he was outstanding. There were three Irish dancers as part of the support crew and a young Irish Tenor who had a superb voice. We got a bit mixed up and thought we were going to see an Irish comedian but not to worry it was a great experience. Although O'Connor was a great musician he didn’t really interact with the audience – it was two hours of non stop music with just a 15 minute break in the middle. The lighting and special effects, given the venue, a local hotel were just amazing.
After the the show the full cast were at the exit door shaking hands and thanking people for coming which I thought was a nice touch.
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Donna
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Kia ora
Sounds like you are having a wonderful time. There is no mention of SNOW where you are. NZ has been hit with snow in Wgtn, Rotorua and even Auckland.