Today’s big adventure was the
Ring of Kerry. It is a 100 mile loop which goes through the
most picturesque portion of
Ireland. You go through a variety of landscapes from
coast to meadowland to mountains.
Along the coast and about half way up the hills the pastures
are very green, dotted with sheep and cows, and separated with rock walls –
extremely pretty. Despite the obvious
indicators that they get lots of rain around here, our luck continues to hold
out and except for some fog at the mountain tops early in the day, we had
another great day as far as weather.
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| King Puck |
One of the towns we passed through hosts the
Puck Fair where they crown a wild goat as
King Puck. He reigns for the 3 days of the fair. When they asked us what we thought they did with the goat after the fair I said 'eat it'. No, instead they take it back to the wild and release him. I really need to work on this catch and release philosophy!
For lunch we stopped at a place that is supposed to be one
of the best views of the coast. It
overlooks one of several bays which exist along the southwest coast of
Ireland. It was spectacular and I had some real Irish
Stew for lunch. The picture above and to the right are from the lunch stop. Below is lunch.
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| Irish stew - need to use up some of all that lamb |
The
Killarney National Park is along
the route. It was the first national
park in
Ireland. I’ll let you read more about the park via the
link.
Queen
Victoria
traveled through the region and one of the outlooks in the park was named by
her to honor her ladies in waiting for finding an especially nice place to set
up a lunch area for her. It is called
Ladies View.
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| Ladies View |
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| Ladies View |
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| trout lake |
This was one of the lakes visible from Ladies View. They stock these lakes with 50,000 brown trout. I really need to learn to always travel with a fishing pole!
As we left the park we headed back down into more
meadow land. Many areas around here are
peat bogs. Peat is compressed old
vegetation – but not so old or compressed to be turned into coal and oil. They would cut, dry, and compress the peat to
use in fireplaces. It burns slowly and
with not as much flame as wood, but there is really very little wooded areas
around here so this is the only option.
We toured a restored village where they harvested peat.
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| Kerry Bog Village |
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| Replica of Forge |
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| House with spot for animals |
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| Home with peat stack |
This shows the piles of peat bricks stacked against the side of the house. They were used for heat and cooking over.
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| Jenny - ready to travel |
Gypsies are call Travelers here and this is a restored caravan.
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| Irish Wolf Hound (of course) |
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| Jenny with the 'puppy' |
The owners also worked to help prevent the extinction of a breed of horse called the
bog pony. They are small, stout horses wwho were used to pull peat wagons. They are considered some of the rarest horses in the world.
a breed of horse called the bog pony
.
Jenny and I went on our first ‘excursion’ here. We joined the group for a night in an Irish
pub. On the way there we stopped at
another scenic overlook which was also the site of an old abbey with an old,
but still used, cemetery surrounding the ruins of the abbey.
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| My oldest find |
The various styles of Celtic crosses used on
the tombstones was interesting. Jenny
and I competed to find the oldest gravestone.
I found one from 1821 but Jenny claims to have found one from 1706
but neglected to get a picture to prove her claim – so I win.
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