Today, in Killarney, it is rainy and somewhat windy.
Also today, in Killarney, Penny and I took a trip up through the Gap of Dunloe and down the lakes of Killarney.
I’d done the tour six years ago, and came back badly sunburned. Looking at the weather forecast, I figured there was almost no chance of that happening again. The lovely Toni, who owns the place we’re staying and who had booked the tour for us (at our request) kept checking with us to make sure we had seen the forecast and still wanted to go.
Our thinking was that, sure, good weather for the tour is better than rain, but rain on the tour is better than not going at all.
Reader, there was rain.
The bus took us to Kate Kearney’s Cottage, which is the start of the road up the Gap. I believe it’s named for a woman who used to brew and sell poitín – Irish moonshine – there. From there, you can take a horse buggy ride up through the Gap, or you can walk. Penny, having done the Camino last year and tramped over the Pyrenees, decided to walk.
I took a cart ride.
The horse for our cart, on the left, was somewhat… willful when it came time to put him in harness. The dialect of the drivers here in the mountains of Kerry is pretty thick, and it’s hard to follow what they say when they don’t deliberately slow it down to speak to tourists, but I discovered that certain short words of Anglo-Saxon origin came through quite clearly as these two gentlemen were working with the fractious horse.
Once he was in harness, he was all business, and eager to show off. We passed another of the other buggies going up, and made the trip pretty quickly.
Not many pictures of the trip, because it was cold and rainy and really, really windy. But here’s a few:
So, I made it through the Gap to Lord Brandon’s Cottage about an hour before Penny did on foot. I had a sandwich and rested a bit – at the steepest part of the Gap, we had to get off the cart and walk, to give the horse a bit of a break. According to my smart watch, I climbed 62 flights of stairs on that little walk.
And then it was down to the boars and back to Ross Castle. No pictures of that leg, because it was raining even harder by then, and the wind was a little vicious, and my camera was under three layers of wet clothes by then.
But we made it back alive, if somewhat chilled. Right now, we are in our room, having changed into dry clothes and warmed up some, and will be thinking about going to find some dinner in a little bit.
Tomorrow, we have a tour of the Dingle Peninsula. It’s also supposed to be rainy tomorrow, but not as much. Also, more bus, less boat on this tour.