Our bus travels along the Atlantic Coast, with spits of rock jutting out into the ocean and with green rolling hills undulating down to the water. We just left the Skellig Chocolate Factory and my stomach feels good with hot chocolate made with soy milk. The sun goes in and out but it is not rainy. There is incredible wind in Portmagee at the end of the Ring of Kerry peninsula as we walk around and admire the view. Due to the rough water, it is not possible as originally planned to take a boat into the sea and around the rocky isle of Skellig Michael, ancient site of a monastery with 600 steps up to the top.
We started out this morning driving on the Ring of Kelly, following the coast and stopping off at beautiful sites along the way. Our walk up a path to the Cliffs of Kerry overlook, past replica bee hive structures once used to shelter monks, gives us a view toward Skellig Michael, visible in the distance over rough water.
The countryside we pass is made up of rectangles of green farming fields, each framed by medieval looking rocks so that as we come down the hill from above it looks like a checkerboard of varied colors of green. Sheep are scattered around, white with black faces, and we did pass a few alpacas as well, newly sheared for their rich hair. We are told the wool from sheep here is not high quality and used to either mix with better varieties or used for more industrial purposes, like insulation. Deserted remains of stone houses also dot the landscape, most likely abandoned or after death of owners or due to emmigration looking for a better life.
Yesterday was wonderful. We ventured first to Muckross House, which is at the edge of Killarney National Park, a large mansion and land given as a gift to the country by a wealthy American family who lived there and who loved it dearly. Expansive green fields and landscaped gardens lead down to a big lake. We hiked around part of the lake, enjoying the waterside scenery and change of landscape as the sun moves in and out.
We drove to Torc Waterfall for a brief stop before heading out for a hike in Killarney National Park.
John, who has hiked often in the area, knew of a large plot of private land maintained by a local family with generations of history in the area who allows passage of visitors toward the highest mountain in the area, 1039 meter Carrauntanaill, for a small fee upon entrance. We climbed up on a dirt, rock and gravel path, with some stone steps and a nearby stream crossed by 2 engineered small steel bridges which are dedicated to the memory of Angela Kenny, a local hiker. She died in 1995 when slipping trying to cross the strong waterway with a heavy back pack over stepping stones. The bridges now make it much safer. It is a magnificent hike, intermittently overcast and sun.
It turns out that our guide John is not only a mountaineer and marathon runner, he did the 200 mile Kerry Way Ultra Marathon (it took him 34 hours with a brief nap). He has climbed K2, Mt. Blanc and other mountains and led expeditions to Alaska, Morocco in the Atlas Mounains and the highest mountains in Ireland with are 3300 feet high. We feel very safe hiking with him.
John took us yesterday for a final stop to a high-end resort he knows whose owners raise Haflinger horses, once almost extinct and imported from Austria and bred in the early 20th century. Such magnificent animals! The owners now allow guests to ride them and local teenagers come to comb and curry them in exchange for occasional use. We feed them with treats brought along by John and marvel at their beauty.
Back in Killarney — it is Sunday night of the 3-day bank holiday weekend – and everyone is out partying and there is one loud gathering after another. After dinner, we hear music coming out of every other shop and, unfortunately, right next to our Hotel, so that some of us have trouble sleeping until the music stops around midnight. There is also a Harley Davidson festival going on which does not help the noise factor in the middle of the night.
Today, out once again, we wind round the farming hills to the Skellig Chocolate Factory and then on to a small reconstructed fortified homestead ring of stones, sometimes referred to as a “fort”. It sits in a peaceful valley with sheep and more recently summer houses of the families who have lived here for generations. There are hedges of purple rhododendron which John tells us are considered an invasive species here and hacked down periodically, although beautiful right now in their pink blooming stage. He also says these hills were originally covered with oak, cut down to make farms, and then used for shipbuilding and firewood over the centuries.
Fuchsia foxgloves also appear on the side the road which is lush with the kind of wooded foliage I imagined as the land of Ireland. I think of all the rural families moving from this exceptionally beautiful land to the clamor of Dublin and Boston and Chicago, looking for a way to financially provide for their families but always perhaps longing for the bit of green of their birth country.
The small towns here in Kerry all have shops created by earlier generations and continued over the time, small places with individually painted unique identities. I asked where people go shopping and was told some large grocery chains deliver 1-2 times a week. And if there are medical needs, help is a call away although the nearest large hospital is back in Killarney. It remains a quiet lifestyle where everyone in a village or area knows each other and supports each other in times of trouble — theoretically. I am sure there are the same disagreements, hurts, and antipathies here as elsewhere in the world among the human population.
We go out tonight for a Celtic Dancing Show and Music. It began raining heavily on our drive back and we hope it will clear by tomorrow morning.
