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Published: June 18th 2009
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The town of Killorglin
The start of the Ring of Kerry Thursday 11th June
Limerick to Cork via The Ring of Kerry
The Tour Directors cold is improving but for the cough and I am still waiting my turn but are eating oranges and any type of vitamin C I can get my hands on to keep it at bay.Perhaps more Guiness will be a good idea.
A long day is planned for today as we will take in the Rink of Kerry which is reported to be the best and most scenic touring road in Ireland.
As we had travelled the River Shannon road yesterday we took an inland road,the N21,to Tralee and then onto Killorglin to start the road that circles probably the most mountainous area of Ireland.
As we expected the road was busy and at the start the buses were particulary noticeable although as the day passed they became less obvious.
The views out over Dingle Bay are very pleasant and there are as many photo stops as you could want.
We had a plan to take a small detour to reach the coast and hopefully see the famous Skelligs,two islands that you can visit by launch.Not that we had the time to do that.
The scenery was
Valencia Island
You can get to this island either by car ferry or by road bridge several kilometres away certainly spectacular with gorgeous coastal views and then a rather expansive view from the coast back along a valley to the foot of the mountains.Everything is so green and although many people liken NZ to Ireland because of this we feel really that NZ may be green but there is also usually farmland that has been dried off because of a lack of rain making it different in appearance to the overall greenery of Ireland.
The road continued on around the coast rising in parts so that the views were out over farmland and down to the rocky seashore.All the while small generally whitewashed farmhouses were dotted over the landscape housing the rather sparse population of this area.
The “ring”is a distance of 170km and was estimated to take us 4 hours although some people take all day if they are taking in multiple attractions.We took 5 hours finishing the “ring” near 5pm with still another 2 hours run to Cork.
We would have liked another day or perhaps two in the southwest as there were more coastal roads to explore but we had to be back in Dublin by tomorrow night for the Saturday morning ferry back to England
so time was against us and it will have to wait for our next visit.
The road into Cork was through more farmland and became a lot busier as we reached the city of Cork.Luckily we had booked accommodation on the outskirts so our late arrival meant we didn’t have to mix it with the rush hour traffic heading home.
We thought hauling the microwave past the Travelodge reception might be a bit over the top so opted for a shrimp salad which we put together from a range of things we purchased at Tescos including a very tasty avocado,the first we had had since leaving NZ.
It had been another long but very scenic day and the mileage on Renee Renault is starting to creep up with 2700kms already done in just on a week!!
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