Ireland day 12 - Thursday 16th June

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Another day of sunshine!

We had planned to drive around the Ring of Kerry today, before heading to our next stop about 2 hours drive away. I’m delighted to say though, that following a recommendation from Man with Donkey yesterday as well as one or two other people in Dingle, we changed our plan and did the Slea Head Drive instead. Slea Head is a promontory in the westernmost part of the Dingle Peninsula. National Geographic magazine once said it was the most beautiful place in the world; I’m not qualified to agree or disagree on that because I haven’t been everywhere else, but it is absolutely stunning!

We had a yummy breakfast in Dingle Town, then headed off. As we left the town we spotted a Buddhist Monk who had been on the road near Inch Beach when we visited yesterday. He was carrying a rucksack, so we’re assuming he is walking the Dingle Peninsula. A great thing to do, but it is an unusual sight to see!

Our first stop was only a few minutes later, when we spotted a sign for a ring fort. The fort was pretty cool, dating from around 500BC, with a deep ditch, around a mound which would have had a few buildings on it. What we found even more interesting though, were the sheep, lambs, donkeys, ponies, pigs and goats that you could pet, and feed with a small supply of nuts collected from the entrance kiosk. It was lovely to stroke the soft wooly fleece of the lambs, and have your hand tickled by the lips of the animals as they nibbled the nuts from your palm.

We carried on with our journey, and made another stop shortly afterwards to see some Beehive Huts apparently even older than the ring fort. A very interesting design, no mortar or cement required, and shaped to allow rain to run off the sides.

We spent the next part of the drive stopping at various viewpoints looking over to the Blasket Islands, and eventually found our way to Dunquin where the ferry to Great Blasket sails from. No sailing today because of the strong winds, but we did buy a drink from the most westerly coffee truck in Europe. Stopping a bit further on at Krugers Bar, the most westerly bar in Europe, we each had a lime and soda, shared a bag of crisps (chips) and used the facilities.

The views around the coastline were absolutely breathtaking, and photos can’t do them justice. We stopped at a small promontory called Waymount, and had a bit of a walk in the wind. Susan said the wind was at least gale force, but it was just a breeze compared to some of the winds I’ve been in on Lundy. There was a geocache towards the end of it, but despite my impression of a mountain goat clambering up and down the rocks while searching for it, it evaded me. We could see the Three Sisters, a group of 3 peaks along the coast, right next to the site of the Jedi Temple in Star Wars – the last Jedi. I might need to watch it and see if I can spot the location.

With all our stops, it took us nearly 5 hours to do the drive of around 27 miles, so goodness knows how long the 111 miles of the Ring of Kerry would have taken!

Once we got back to Dingle we headed off to our next stop at Lackenalooha, about 2 ½ hours away. It’s a great place, with ponies, a foal, and a great little dog, Blackie, that I would have loved to take home with me if it had been possible. We had supper of baked beans on toast, then spent a couple of hours in the sunshine stroking and talking to the ponies and foal, and throwing the remains of a ball for Blackie.

Today was around 12000 steps and 8km.

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