Ireland - Killarney to Doolin (aka Dry Bags can come in VERY handy!)

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Ireland - Killarney to Doolin

Saturday 22nd - Sunday 23rd March (Easter Sunday)

Woke feeling very refreshed after a great night out at Dannys Irish Music Pub, which is right across the road from Neptunes. The pub is really typical Irish and the food was delicious, the service excellent and the atmosphere cosy. We took our time over dinner and sat and talked and laughed and it was one of the best nights we’ve had so far, just being together and having fun. We went walking around town after dinner then off to bed.

Saturday morning now, and on todays agenda is Muckross House which is about 6km from the Killarney town centre. We had to move rooms though (because I’d booked extra days pretty late) which was a bit of a bitch, from our double with our own bathroom into the tinest little room you ever saw, no room to swing a cat, with two bunk beds and our bathroom down the hall. But it was quite comfy and we settled in before setting off for Muckross House about midday.

We arrived to find that we had just missed the next tour of the inside of the house, so we walked around outside. The house is huge, made of stone and set right on the edge of the national park. The grounds are gorgeous, big rolling grass slopes, huge beech trees, the ever present daffodils. There are horse drawn carriages to ride in and heaps of people out enjoying the day - walking, bike riding and even laying on the grass sleeping. Its a funny day weather wise though - one moment its sunshine then two seconds later the sky turns grey and it is hailing huge balls of ice. 10 minutes after that, the sun is back or its drizzling. Never a bad idea here to have your rain coat handy, but the showers never seem to last for long so it’s not a big deal.
We decided to wander up to Muckross Farm, just across the park from the house, which is a series of working farms set up to show how the farms were run in the olden days. Its reasonably big, takes a good 45 mins to an hour to walk around. Tiny little thatched cottages dot the walkways, and inside there are women cooking over the big old fireplaces, men outside cutting turf for the fire and chickens running around everywhere. You can look inside the old bedrooms and kitchens and stables. There are donkeys, horses, cows, sheep and dogs which thrilled Reagan to no end. We were having a great old time and taking heaps of photos (far too many of the cute little fluffy baby donkey) until disaster struck. My bloody camera batteries died! We were playing with a couple of big grey Irish Wolfhounds when it happended and I was trying to get some snaps of Reagan giving the larger one a good old scratch behind his ears. But never mind (I thought) I have bought spares....and yes , I did , I bought 2 spares. But heres a tip.... always check to see how many batteries your camera actually takes... Mine took 4 so it was very disappointing to miss out on so many good pics. Duh!

The wolfhounds at Muckross Farm were a lot more energetic that the ones at the bog farm on the Ring of Kerry. They ran up to the gate wagging their tails and the smaller one stuck his head through and kept nudging my arm until I scratched him under the chin and behind the ears. He was a real sook. Whenever I moved on the bigger dog to give him a scratch too, the smaller one was back in there with his nose, nudging my hand and bumming the other dog out of the way. They were very shaggy and dirty and slobbery, but you couldn’t help adore them, they were such cuddle pies and so obviously eager for some affection. I was spewing when my camera ran out so we only managed to get 1 shot of Reagan scratching them.
The afternoon was really enjoyable though and we finished off with run through the kids playground which was great - it had a big long obstacle course for Reagan to go through so she had a bit of fun with that. Arrived back at Neptunes about 5, tired out. Leftover curry in the hostel kitchen then went to bed early. We are off to Doolin tomorrow and I still have to pack. And hide easter eggs!

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Easter Sunday. Reagan slept great, but I couldn’t sleep at all and ended up being awake literally all night writing emails, texting and talking, and surfing the net. Thank goodness for wifi in the bedroom lol though the time zone difference can be a problem. We are nine hours ahead here. I think I finally got about an hours sleep about 6am, when Reagan woke up and came down to my bunk and squeezed in for a cuddle - she was like a little lamb, all soft and warm, and I fell back asleep again without meaning too, but being the good little chicky she is, she woke me up on time. I was definitely feeling the effects of no sleep and was a bit queasy and under the weather.

When we woke up Reagan was very excited to see that the Easter Bunny had somehow found his way to Killarney! Good sense of direction that rabbit has hee hee. He was a little worried about where to hide the eggs in a totally bare bedroom but as I had started packing the night before there was crap everywhere, so it turned out that Reagan had a fine old time finding them and she polished off about a dozen (mini) eggs within the space of 5 minutes.

We showered, packed up quickly, checked out and arrived at the bus station about 8:30am and had some breakfast while we waited. Big mistake....not 20 minutes on the bus had gone by when I had to make a grab for the spare dry bag that I gave Reagan to put her dvd player in. Luckily for me there weren’t many passengers so no-one except Reaggie witnessed my humiliation. Felt better after though and I drifted off to sleep while Reagan bopped along besided me listening to her IRiver. She was like my darling little nurse, patting my head and asking how I was all the time.

We arrived at Limerick about 11ish (without further incident!) and I was quite surprised to see how big it was. Its actually a little city, whereas I think the lyrical connotations of Limerick somehow had pout the thought of a quaint Irish village in my head. Didnt really appeal, but to be fair we were only passing by and probably didn’t see the best bits. Although we started talking to a kiwi guy that was on the bus and he was telling us that Limerick had a bad reputation for violence etc, so was not at all unhappy that we didn’t stay over there. Changed buses and continued on to Ennis, where we swapped again for the Doolin bus. The bus service here is pretty good, although they don’t give you much info at the terminals ie which bay the bus in, and there are no bus numbers, the bus just shows its final destination on the front, sometimes in Gaelic which is spelt a lot differelty to English. This isn’t a lot of help if you are going to Doolin and you a see a bus that says Limerick, Ennis or Galway. Just ask the drivers though they are all usually helpful and its a good idea to grab a route map and timetable to keep handy. Bus Eireanne has a website with all info on it also.

I slept all the way from Limerick to Ennis then started feeling queasy again when we changed buses at Ennis. I had just run up to ask the bus driver if he could stop the bus when we arrived at the Cliffs of Moher (about 8km from Doolin) to let half of the bus out, so I got to walk around a little in the fresh air and that helped a lot. Safe until Doolin thank goodness. Arrived at 2:30pm.

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