Day 6: July 5 - Journal Entry
Happy Birthday Jonathan! For his birthday we are taking a tour of the Ring of Kerry.
Another early morning, Molly is starting to hate us a bit I think. We have to be in Killarney by 10 am to catch a bus tour of the Ring of Kerry, and it is a 3 and a half hour drive. We have to check in for the tour at least 15 minutes before and Jonathan wants a buffer of 30 minutes. Translation, we leave at 5:45 am, waking up about 5:15. But the good news is that she can sleep in the car, right?
Well, nevertheless, we got out on time and despite a little trouble finding parking, we made it to our tour bus, and early too. The best part, we walked past a little french patisserie shop on the way to the tour pick up, and they had a large selection of gluten free treats. Molly got a strawberry and cream something, that looked and smelt delicious.
Ring of Kerry
The bus was loaded and we met a lot of new people. Molly even sat next to a nice young lady that was traveling alone, it is great to meet new people. The bus driver was friendly and knowledgeable, but he was also a crazy driver. The Ring of Kerry was hosting a charity bike ride today, so there were a lot of bikers along the route. The bus driver would come up on a biker and get so close, then pull into the oncoming lane, pull around the biker, and pull back into the correct lane so close in front of the biker I could swear we squashed them. It was horrifying. I was so so so glad I was not driving, it was the same stupid narrow rodes that are all over Ireland, but bike riders on the non-existent shoulders of the roads.
Well, aside from scaring several dozen bikers, the tour was ok. We stopped at a few photo ops, got to see the southeast coast of Ireland, lovely views of some forests, and a statue of the goat king. Yes, I said Goat King. The town of Killorglin - Dromavally chose a mountain goat every year, then they crown him king for a day to celebrate at festival. We got lunch at one of the stops and did a little souvenir shopping at another stop.
Killarney
When we got back to Killarney we felt like, while it was a long tour, we hadn’t really seen anything historic. So we took a walk through Killarney. We walked into the park and Molly got to pet a deer. Yep, this small deer had wandered into the park, right in the middle of the grass where people were enjoying a picnic. Some kids started to pet the deer and it just stood there. It was so weird, a small boy even started to hug the deer, and it still just stood there. A crowd of half a dozen noisy kids, and that little deer just stood there, looking around, completely unfazed. I wonder if it was deaf?
After the park we walked to an impressive cathedral, amazing stonework and stained glass. Then a friary, some old walls, and what we think was a college that might have started as something else but was very impressive architecture. Now we are beat. Time to make the long drive home.
What a navigational nightmare. We have got to complain to google maps. Our drive home put us on some of the scariest little roads ever. Jonathan started to look closer at the map, and if we reroute to more main roads, it only adds a few minutes to the drive, but way less stress and few heart in forehead moments. Why do maps think these little local, barely wide enough for one car let alone two way traffic, roads should be the most recommended routes, even with similar ETA, it always recommends the narrow routes first. Have they ever driven on these roads?
Well, now we know, check the directions in advance and reroute off the L roads whenever possible, Trust me!