September 5 – Dingle Peninsula

 

We were light eaters at breakfast this morning. Instead of ordering from the menu, we had cereal, fruit and yogurt from the buffet. With plenty of coffee, we were fortified enough for our trek around The Dingle Peninsula.

The weather was partly cloudy as the rain from last night moved on. Temperatures were in the 50’s and never reached 60 all day. It was very refreshing.

Traffic was light, and it was moving a lot slower than on our tour of The Ring Of Kerry. This was nice for me as the driver although I am getting used to driving on the left and judging the edge of the road on my left. The road is very narrow in places. The busses that we encountered had to go very slowly around some of the hairpin curves.

We pulled of the road a couple of times in the first few kilometers to take photos of the incredible scenery. I tried to make sure that I looked inland as well as toward the sea to try to capture the views. Our first prolonged stop was at the Great Blasket Centre. This is a fascinating heritage centre/museum  honoring the unique community who lived on the remote Blasket Islands until their evacuation in 1953. We watched a video, toured the displays, had a scone and took some photos.

Blasket Island

A few kilometers up the road, we stopped for lunch at Tig Bhric Pub. It was a little early after our scone, but it would have been real hard for me to pass up some local brew. We were a bit reluctant to go in because there was a “For Sale” sign in front. It was open, though, but nobody was inside. The pub looked like a pub should look. We roused the bartender and asked if he had some of his craft beer. He poured a draft from the tap, tasted it, didn’t think we would like it, poured me a sample and I agreed. So he went next door and brought back the last of his bottled porter. We split one. Ann liked it a lot and wanted to take some home. I wasn’t real happy with it and would have taken some back in the car, but I didn’t think that it would travel very well. So we had our soup and sandwich and drove on. This brew pub was in the middle of nowhere. I don’t see how it could be successful.

Our last stop was at the Gallarus Oratory which is an ancient Christian church. We got there by driving up a very narrow one-lane road, parked in a small free lot and walked down a footpath lined by fuchsia bushes and swarms of bees. The oratory is a small stone building shaped like an upturned boat. That’s appropriate because there is a good view of the harbor. About a dozen monks would sit inside for services. The bus load of French tourists that we met there would have to take turns praying.

That was the end of our tour of the Dingle Peninsula. We drove only a little over 30 miles, but it took most of the day. A bicycle would be a good way to do this tour if you had no fear of vehicles passing closely.

Instead of heading back to our room, we decided to drive west on a narrow lane to walk up to the Eask Tower. We had our first encounter of meeting wide vehicles on a one-lane road. We had to back up three times to let some large tractors go by. When we reached the trailhead, the friendly lady gatekeeper met us, took our two Euros and gave us directions. We walked straight up through sheep pastures for a short while and then zig-zagged through sheep pastures the rest of the way. We saw lots of sheep and lot of sheep muck (that’s what the gatekeeper called it). A group of Americans coming down the trail warned us to watch our step. One of the girls was walking bare footed because she had shoes that were too hard to clean. Well, the climb was worth it. We had wonderful views from the top. The photo at the top of this page is one of them.

At the end of the walk, we stopped and talked to the husband of the gatekeeper. He was mixing mortar and repairing the stones on his small gatehouse. He was a friendly elderly gent about our age. Ann got him into a discussion about the types of sheep and what they are used for today. He said that the rams wool was used in WWII to line the inside of fighter planes as a shield from bullets. He also said that the wool business is bad today because everyone is using synthetic fabrics. He was very chatty, but we had to break it off in order to scrub the bottoms of our shoes before we got back into the car. The hose and scrub brush were part of the entry fee.

Back at our room, we took a break. At 6:00 we walked down the block to The Chart House. Our dinner was very good in this highly rated restaurant. We have discovered that Irish restaurants have special early bird menus. They are two or three course meals priced lower that you would pay if you ordered ala carte. They are still expensive – usually €20 - €25. My meal was fish chowder (local fresh fish), chicken breast (Irish free range with special sauces) and lemon cheese cake with orange sorbet. Ann had their special salad with very fresh vegetables, salmon on polenta and dark chocolate terrain with berries and praline ice cream. We took a long walk after that to settle our stomachs.

Now it’s bedtime.