The Hills of Kerry(Paddy Reilly) - A Day in Castleisland,Ireland - 24th July 2016

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The hike
of yesterday had taken it’s toll on us.Either we had lost our fitness that had
taken us through the trails of the Dolomites or it had been the type of country
we had hiked through,soft turf to rocky hard ground.

Either
way we resolved that today would be a quiet rest at home and if we did do
anything by way of walking then it would be something flat and local.

Time for
more catching up of the travel blog and reading and before we knew it half the
day had gone.

The
weather had followed the routine we had noticed since arriving but this
afternoon,as it now was, brighter and sunnier than previous days and even the
air temperature felt like it might make 20C.Not quite shorts weather but
getting closer.

Den Joe’s
takeaway restaurant downtown had provided fast and free wi fi and we needed
somewhere to connect with the internet to keep up with emails at the very least
and of course have the travel blog published for those around the world keeping
up with our travels.

Gretchen
thought we should try somewhere else first rather than have the white Seat
Ibiza with a couple of furtive looking people sitting in the front seats with
laptop and tablet turning up outside the takeaway each day.

There
was another cafe in the main street that had a sticker announcing that they too
had free wi fi. It was likely therefore that their signal would reach the
footpath if we could park in front of the cafe.

As it
turned out there was a free car park right in front of the cafe but the open wi
fi connection wouldn’t open fully and remained on limited meaning that we
couldn’t open any web pages.

As a
second option we drove onto outside the library but there were no wi fi
connections showing.

There
was just one thing for it and that was back to Den Joes. There may have been
other open wi fi connections in the wide main street with several other likely
places such as bars and cafes but we might have looked a bit more furtive if we
kept moving the car up and down the main street.

We got
our fill of internet at Den Joes and then to give more legitimacy to our car
being parked where it was we left the car and headed off to complete the Castle
Island River Walk.

It
turned out to be a pleasant half hour stroll along the River Maine which runs
to one of the town’s main street.

The
river bank is lined with Oak, Ash and Willow trees while the river is home to
ducks which in one spot were being observed by a local dog sitting on a ledge
under a narrow road bridge hoping that the ducks might float close enough for
him to treat them as fair game. In the past a mill used to operate in the area
using the water backed up by a weir as its power. The structure and the weir
have now gone.

At one
point we stopped to read the plaque that gave information on what had been
Desmond Castle which was one of the Norman forts or towers built in a line
through Kerry to protect the English settlers from the Irish who even in those days,
around 1200 AD, wanted them out of their country.

There is
still a sort of column left covered in vines but the rest of the structure is
long gone.

The
stone from it probably went to build shops and homes in the town area after it
was abandoned like the stone cottage we are staying in which was also built
from stone from a tower that was on the property and still partially standing
even today.

The last
part of the walk took us past a housing estate and St Stephens and St John’s
Church built in 1884 and to our car parked outside Den Joes.











































t had

been an easy walk and although perhaps we didn’t earn a Guinness quite as much
as we did yesterday after the 10km walk we thought we couldn’t end another day
in Ireland without a glass of the brew together with some slices of the
tastiest cheese we have found and eaten since we left New Zealand way back in
March.

PS:enjoy the Hills of Kerry as we did while walking the River Walk at Castleisland.On Youtube.

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