Day 6 was Dunloe Gap. We booked a trip that would provide us with transportation to the hike and a boat ride through the 3 lakes of Kilarney. Of course, it is raining when we get up, great! Day 5 of rain and we are supposed to hike 7miles and we aren't going to see a damn thing. Fun! We eat our delicious breakfast (I am going to have to wear sweat pants home I am getting so big) and walk into town to buy fixin's to make a picnic lunch (still full from breakfast and already worried about lunch). We buy bread...which I could live off of by itself...cheese, and apple and some cookies. We get to the tour place and get on the bus. The man comes on and wants our tickets. He tells us we are on the wrong bus...oops! We make our way onto the correct bus and off we go. The sky's are overcast and there is a misting in the air but it is not really raining. We make to to the start, which is Kearney's Cottage. The person who lived here was supposed to have magical healing powers (too bad they are dead, if I could have found her grave I would have rolled on it!)
So you have an option of riding horse back or buggy ride (jaunt) or hiking. Of course the horses are extra. Lisa and I are excited to hike to we head off. I read somewhere that when they did this hike they followed the path of poop. Now I know why! Horses sure are messy. After a while you forget about it. It is kind of like hiking in Switzerland. There is cow pooh everywhere and so after a while, you forget to even "look out for it" unless it's a large fresh pile!
I was going to bring my garmin for fun, just to see how far (not how fast) we had been. At the last minute I decided not to bring it. I wish I had. We had 3hours 15minutes to go 7miles. It would have been nice to know that we were goofing off too much in the 1st part, taking pictures and such. It seems like the last hour we were walking faster than I had walked during the ironman, (not saying much there am I) and we were worried we wouldn't get there in time. We made it with 30 extra minutes, enough time to eat the lunch we brought. I think besides Lisa & myself, there was one woman from France who also hiked, the rest were on horses - slackers. Oh btw...we didn't get rained on, just overcast! Lucky us! We got on our little boat ride through the lakes which was nice. We were with a group of 8 other women. Lisa was talking to one of them and found out they were here on a "hen's weekend". We thought that was funny. I wonder if they have rooster weekends instead of "going to Vegas". We made it to shore and we were at the Ross Castle which is just a little over a mile back to our B&B. Lisa decides she doesn't want to wait for the bus (and all the other people to come in by their boats) and says she wants to walk. We only get about 2-3minutes up the road when the bus passes us...ergh! Did I mention I was going to have to wear sweatpants? Shut up and walk! Dinner was 2 pints of Guinness!
Day 7- Dingle
The goal today was to pack up and head over to Dingle, find a B&B and do some site seeing. It is raining hard! We have found out from the locals that it was a beautiful June. It rained the last day in June and it hasn't stopped yet! Everyone is sick of the rain. This July has had the most amount of rain in the past 50years and they figure August is going to be another record as well. How many days away is September? Anyways, we make it to Dingle and drive by the B&B that is our #1 wish list pick b/c it has wireless internet, parking and is in town. The sign says "no vacancy's"rats! So I convince Lisa to call them, hoping that they just haven't changed their board yet. Sure enough, vacancy for tonight but not for tomorrow. Oh well, we will worry about that then. So we head to the tourist information office and get some info. Right across the street is the place you can get fried snickers bars. Yum! I may not even FIT into my sweatpants. We decide to save that for another time. We get some info on two museums that are free today, so we head out. Now Dingle is supposed to be prettier than the ring of Kerry. We couldn't tell you if this is true because all we could see was road, windshield wipers and rain. We did see some cool archaeological stones and stone monastic sites. They look fitting pictured in the rain and clouds. We did get a glimpse of what was described in one of our guide books as a "creamy stretch of beach". All I could think of was Shawn doing her Irish accent talking about the "creamy soups". We did see another skin cancer prevention sign and had another good chuckle. I mean really, who are these people kidding. They must have actors and photographers who stay camped out all summer, and on the ONE day it is sunny, they run down and do a camera shoot so they can publish them in the guide books. A bunch of crap they are! We are hoping that tomorrow will be clearer so we can get a view of the shoreline. What we could see looked very pretty. We have learned about two very popular sports while we have been here (and spent some time in the pubs) Hurling and Gaelic Football. I have also had to read up on the European football (soccer) league. People here love their sport! More reason for me to love this place (just not the rain).
Hopefully tomorrow won't be so miserable. Lisa and I are ready for it not to be raining. We are wondering why all of our summer vacations have involved us freezing (Peru, Sonoma valley, Maine, Switzerland and now here) . Next year may have to be somewhere warm.
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