Cork and Kerry, June '06

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Cork

To start my trip in Ireland I flew to Cork, there to stay with relatives (two of whom I’d met when they came on a trip to New Zealand). They lived in a big old house a few minutes walk from the city and it made a great base for my exploration of the area.

Cork was a nice little city with lots of bridges and big wide roads due to the fact that it was built over a whole lot of islands separated by river channels. Many of the doors in the city are raised off street level and still have places where the canal boats used to tie up along the sides of the rivers. The fact that it’s built on natural river channels also made it almost impossible to navigate without a map. I got lost again and again; none of the streets seemed to run parallel and there were all kinds of bizarre angles and awkward corners.

I made a day trip out to Blarney castle while I was in Cork. It’s pretty much obligatory to visit, climb the ruins and kiss the blarney stone. The day I kissed the blarney stone the weather was amazing, the views were incredible and the American tourists were rampant. Still, I had to do it. The actual kiss involves lying on your back and leaning out over the side of the battlements through a hole in the floor, to kiss a certain stone in the wall of the keep that is supposed to grant the kisser the gift of the gab. Originally the kisser was suspended over the side of the battlements by their ankle to kiss the stone. This practice was discontinued in the 1800s when a tourist was dropped to his death mid-kiss. Now it’s all very safe and all together not very thrilling. Still, fun though.

The grounds of Blarney castle were gorgeous too. I spent most of the day wandering through various fairy grottos and flower gardens. It was pretty peaceful, despite the odd nasal American complaint heard on the wind.

While I was out near Blarney I visited the Woolen Mills - a huge indoor market and a veritable pit of consumerism and tourist exploitation. While I was there I purchased some Waterford Crystal (making me no different from 99% of all the other tourists passing through) for mum and some Killarney crystal for myself and Francie.

The other memorable activity from my time in Cork was my day in Cobh, where Titanic famously set off. There is a small museum at the docks where all the information is written by my cousin Alicia, quite a well known historian. I spent the rest of the day wandering around the seaside town and up to the massive cathedral on the hill before being picked up by an even more distant relation, Carol Cave. Then it was back to their house for a family dinner which went far more easily than I’d been expecting. Their kids were very friendly and only a little bit younger than me and the meal was very Irish.

On my last day in County Cork, Eve and Evelyn took me on a tour of the Beara Peninsula and then onward to Killarney where they very kindly dropped me at my hostel. Beara was beautiful and very wild. We went all the way out to the tip where they have a holiday cottage. It was nothing like the holiday homes in NZ. The weather was windy, almost always, and the cottage was a tiny little 3 room, 2 storey house that was well over 100years old. I spent some time wandering around outside and down to the coast where I could imagine selkies coming out of the water and shedding their seal skins.

We arrived at Aghadoe house in Fossa, Killarney, in the evening so I pretty much went straight to my bunk and crashed out. This is where I met the dreaded Catalina from South Africa. I say dreaded not because she is a horror in herself, in fact she was rather nice, but because she is directly responsible for me doing a very foolish thing and wiping, irretrievably, all the photos I’d taken in the previous two weeks.

We decided to book a trip around the ring of Kerry together and set off happily enough. During the tour, which circled the peninsula and gave us some lovely views without ever really stopping long enough to enjoy them…, she told me about a trip she’d taken in South America where she’d accidentally wiped her memory card on her camera and had been unable to retrieve any photos because she hadn’t formatted her memory card. She then convinced me that it was only sensible to format mine, therefore safeguarding my photos incase I was stupid enough to delete them all. When we got back to the hostel that evening I did as she’d suggested - in the process of safeguarding all ‘future’ photos, I unfortunately permanently deleted all the photos on my memory card up to that point. So no photos of Cork or my first day in Kerry.  Boo.

I only had a few days in Killarney so I filled them up as well as I could. One day I walked the Gap of Dunloe (another tourist obligation) followed by a boat ride back up the three lakes of Killarney National Park. The Gap of Dunloe is a 12km easy walk through a low mountain pass. The whole way is on a narrow gravel road and passes old ruined homesteads and lots of sheep. At the highest point you can see right down into the Black Valley. Those with means or lacking in fitness have the option to hire a horse and trap to complete the Gap. Once again, the silence of the day was interrupted by various American complaints, this time fading in and out of hearing as they clattered past in the carts.

The boat trip back to Killarney was very restful with the sun shining and little breezes to cool off. The water levels in the lakes were very low - a good metre or so below the usual water mark - due to the extremely dry and sunny summer they were having in Ireland. Lucky me.

Another day in Killarney was spent visiting Muckross Abbey and Muckross House, Torc waterfall, the Blue Pool and general wanderings in the grounds where some of the last remaining native oak forests in Ireland are preserved. The oak forests are so much more beautiful than New Zealand native bush, I’m sorry, it’s true. Probably the only thing we have that comes close to those forests are the Beech forests in Southland. But our northland bush is dull and scrubbly compared to those gorgeous electric green forests at Muckross. Throughout the day I was offered rides in horse traps over and over again, from prices ranging from 40 - 50 euro for an hour. Almost at the end of the day I was finally offered one for 20, and since my feet were cold, wet and starting to blister (it was my first rainy day in Ireland) I accepted. We went for a nice trot around the grounds and up to Torc waterfall (one of the prettiest in Ireland, but not at all comparable to our waterfalls at home). We made a deal where he would give me a lift back to town in the cart (it was only 4km but was wet and miserable by then) if I would help put Sally, the horse, back to her paddock with a pat. Not a bad deal at all.

My last day in Killarney was spent wandering around the little pockets of oak forests and lazing about nursing my blisters. I also went on a 3 hour horse trek through the park. Saw a lot of the wild red deer and some lovely views. Then it was on to Tralee.

In Tralee I treated myself to a nice B&B and had a look at the famous rose gardens, but a day wasn’t really long enough to do much else. From Tralee I took a bus - a horrible, bumpy, windy, nauseating bus - to Dingle, on the Dingle Peninsula. I’d heard lots of good things about Dingle; how lovely it was, the beautiful views, the lovely scenery… I have to say I was a bit let down. It was pretty, certainly, and the landscape was some of the more dramatic I’d seen so far, but it was also incredibly dense with litter and flotsam washed up from the sea. Driftnetting is still popular in Ireland and as a result there were a lot of broken nets washed up on the beach containing dead seabirds. There were all manner of machine parts and car parts, plastic washing baskets, pieces of sheep and that’s just to start. I saw a dead dog and one point, and saw my first Irish seal - also very dead. By the time I left Dingle I was feeling a bit depressed about it all. I’d always had a picture in my head of Ireland as somewhere magical. I suppose everyone does, but I felt that she’d been let down by her inhabitants while I was on the Dingle Peninsula. Not only had they cut down all her trees but the dumped all their crap on her beaches.

Still, I spent a week making my way around the peninsula, clockwise. There were some really beautiful places and some good days amongst the rubbish. Dunmore head, the westernmost tip of mainland Ireland, was wild and beautiful, and Great Blasket Island was a very memorable day. I saw my first live Irish seal there, lots of them, in fact. I walked right around the island but unfortunately didn’t see any puffins.

I finished off in County Kerry by visiting the Gallarus Oratory, a dry-stone church that is more than 2000 years old and in perfect condition. I’d hired a bike and rode from there to Murreagh, the first clean beach I’d see in Kerry so far. I also walked along a short walkway that is classed as the 14th most beautiful walk in the world. It was very pretty, with views of the headland called the Three Sisters and the clear skies making the sea a combination of the most beautiful blues and greens and the rocks all black and jagged. It was good for the soul, after all that human pollution.

From Kerry, it was on northwards to Clare.

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Photos

Great Blasket Island
Looking back to the mainland

Murreagh
The cleanest beach in Kerry