Lauraugh Day 1, "The Lady's Way"

We picked up some provisions in the O'Sheas' store when we arrived last night. Mr. O'Shea warned us, "There's probably not much here that you're looking for, this is kind of a survival store..." But we found some local eggs, a couple of onions, and (best of all) Cadbury Drinking Chocolate. What more could you possibly want?!

The eggs and half of one of the onions, plus some garlic cheese, bread, marmalade, and a butter packet pilfered from the pub last night, became our breakfast our first morning at Valley View Cottage (according to the plaque on the retaining wall by the driveway.... the part of the wall that I did *not* run into last night).

Doc seemed to approve. We drank Irish Breakfast Tea instead of the instant coffee, and it was good.

There was a TON of information in the books and pamphlets we found in the cottage, on all kinds of different activities we could do. It was a little overwhelming. We are staying on the Beara Peninsula, one of several on the southwest coast of Ireland (including the Mizen head, Sheep's Head, Iveraugh, and Dingle Peninsulas). Beara is the "undiscovered" peninsula, because it is significantly less-touristed than the others. Some of the tourist info we picked up on Counties Kerry and Cork (both of which are in Beara) completely omitted it.

One thing was sure, though, I did NOT feel like driving much today. We decided to try out one of the several walks that started within a few kilometers of the cottage, the "Lady's Way". Having learned nothing from our excursion in Killarney Nat'l Park yesterday (to the waterfall), Doc left the planning up to me. I took a good look at the map, figured out where to leave the car, and we were off!

The walk started right next to the pub we almost ate at last night, but had decided was too busy. There were signs pointing the way, so we were reasonably sure this was actually the starting point, and not some random road. The road was a little one-lane track (what I've seen called a "Jeep road" elsewhere, or double-track) that climbed up past the pub, through farms and alongside holiday cottages. It was mostly quiet, but several cars passed us, presumably on their way to holiday cottages (it's a Bank Holiday this weekend, so everyone seems to be traveling).

We saw a LOT of sheep. Some of them very shaggy.

So shaggy that clumps of their wool get caught on the barbed wire! Sheep pretty much roam at will, and completely ignore the wire, so I can only assume it's meant to deter human trespassers.

We reached the top of the road and had beautiful views down towards Killamagoue Bay.

We saw mostly sheep, but also a few cows-- mostly babies!

We didn't see any signs or other indication that we were actually on a hiking path for a long time, and started to wonder if somehow we made a wrong turn somewhere (although there were no turns anywhere along the road...). Finally we passed a couple of guys and asked them if we were headed in the right direction, and they confirmed that we were. A little while further on we came to a signpost that further confirmed that we were on an actual official hiking route.

And a sign for cheese!! Of course, we followed it. Who wouldn't?!

On the way we passed this strange sign on the gate to a house that was for sale. "Any person who omits to shut and fasten this gate is liable for a PENALTY not exceeding FORTY SHILLINGS." We weren't quite sure how such a penalty would be enforced...

We turned off the main road (well, the main hiking track) and continued up a hill, following the signs for cheese.

There were some nice views on the way up...

We walked up to a farmhouse, where a guy with impressively long hair and a matching beard seemed to be tinkering around with some farm equipment. He seemed surprised to see us, and said that he had taken down all of his signs because he was almost out of cheese. I guess he hadn't taken down *all* of them, though. He said that he still had some cheese left, though, and invited us in to his little sunroom to wait while he retrieved it. On the couch inside, he had the EXACT same blanket that Doc has! I might have gasped a little when I saw it. We mentioned it to him, and he said that everyone in the 1970s much have had the same blanket. :P

We stood and chatted with him for a little while. As we talked, his accent seemed to get less and less Irish until he confessed that he's actually English. Hm, that explains it. He said that a group of Russians comes to visit him every year to buy an entire wheel of cheese to take back to wherever they work in Co. Cork. (He said he knew they were Russian because they reeked of vodka. Hm... okay...). 

He went off on a little tirade about the state of beer in Ireland. For such a beer-loving country, he complained, they had really archaic laws about pubs. He had wanted to open a little brewery along the Ring of Kerry, for people on the giant bus tours (clearly offering alcohol to the private drivers, at least explicitly, is not the best or most responsible idea). But when he had gone to get a license, they told him that they weren't issuing any new licenses (and hadn't since the early 1900s, or something), and he'd have to buy a license off of another pub that was closing. Once a pub had a license, they were obliged to contract with one or more of the big brewing companies. And once they agreed to carry one beer, for example, Guinness, they had to carry all of the beers and liquors brewed by that company. So, Guinness is owned by a big English brewer (Diageo), and any pub that carries Guinness also carries a slew of other stuff-- including Bailey's Irish Cream, which I will never disparage, but was still shocked to learn is produced by the same company that makes Guinness. I guess they have a monopoly on iconic Irish liquors. And they're English. There's some irony for you.

(side note: in my wiki-research on Diageo, I discovered that they also market and distribute Ron Zacapa, the best Guatemalan rum. GASP. Some other well-known Diageo brands: Tusker beer [Tanzania], Red Stripe, Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, and Captain Morgan. And they distribute Jose Cuervo in the US [but not internationally].)

All of this was meant to explain the dearth of microbrews in the country (there are a couple of beers labeled "craft-brewed", but from what I can gather there aren't many regulations on what counts as "craft-brewed" here, whereas in the US they'd have to actually meet certain regulations, such as not being produced by a huge multi-national brewery... which these beers are). It was sad to me that a country famous for a particular beer was actually monopolized by that beer's brewer. And a waterier version of it called Murphy's, similarly produced by a rival multi-national brewery (Heineken).

By contrast, he said, in the UK pubs are required by law to circulate through the beers of small, local producers. So each week they'll have a keg or two of some local brewer's latest concoction for sale, and it might be the only place you can buy it. That sounded pretty cool.

5 euro's worth of farmhouse cheddar in hand (err, backpack), we headed back down the road to be on our way.

Doc came across a huge tuft of wool in the road:

Smelled okay, so he put it in his backpack...

The sheep were really attentive to us. We could see them staring at us from quite a ways off the path.

We crested a little hill and decided to stop to have the tea and cookies we had packed. We climbed up off the road a little ways, about a quarter of the way up Knockatee Hill (according to our maps). The hill was full of giant boulders and rocks, and sheep, of course. Not a bad view, eh? These were the last of our delicious wedding cookies :'(

We sat and enjoyed the view for a while, until our tea got bitter and undrinkable. I noticed some teeny little flowers that looked like mini-succulents.

Done with our snack, we headed back to the road and came upon four sheep in our way. They were not amused with our trespassing on their territory. They stood and stared at us for a little while, and then took off running straight down the road. Then they stopped and watched us continue, and turned and ran again. Finally they found an open gate off the road and ran in there instead. (Note the adorable, fuzzy baby. Doc tried to catch him ;)).

(They eventually ran in to this pretty little pastoral scene...)

The road we were on ended at the church, a few km from where we had parked the car. We found a dirt track that cut through the woods, instead, and hoped that it headed back to the bay and the pub (and the parking lot).

Instead, it let out almost directly across from the entrance to Dereen Gardens, another local attraction. According to our watches we had about an hour left before they closed, but had noticed last night that they didn't actually close the gates.

We went in, and decided to explore the grounds a little. There were a number of family-friendly (i.e. stroller-accessible) walks through the gardens, which were more like a lightly-managed forest preserve. There were some areas that had clearly been planted, but most seemed pretty wild.

So, I took a bunch of pictures in a row of Doc climbing this cool tree we saw on one of the paths... and the camera did this automatically!!!!! Pretty nifty.

(I remember taking a whole class on how to make animated .GIFs when I was a kid...)

We decided to take the path down toward the boathouse:

The path continued out onto a little peninsula that looked like it might disappear during high tide.

We wandered back into the woods, and explored some view points built back when the grounds were a holiday home for English nobility.

There was this really cool tunnel made of branches bending over the path.

The whole place was a really interesting combination of woodland and man-made garden features.

The path ended right at the entrance (how convenient), and we walked back down to the regional road that led to the pub. There weren't many cars out, but the ones that passed us were going pretty quickly for that narrow and twisty of a road (maybe 40-50 mph?). We were a little worried that they couldn't see us, and there was no shoulder (even though this was a designated walking route), so we hopped over the bank down into the woods on the side of the road.

We came across several impromptu garbage dumps, as well as a cache of (presumably) animal bones, including this jaw. We tried to identify the animal based on its teeth, but that is definitely not our area of expertise.

There were more nice views over people's fields to the bay.

Finally we made it back to the pub (which is also a bed and breakfast!), which was much quieter than yesterday but still pretty full of people. We found a table at the back, and Doc went to order us two salmon sandwiches for 5.50 euro each. It was the kind of place where you got the impression that everyone already knew each other, which made us a little uncomfortable. There were a decent number of people sitting and standing at the bar with drinks, all chatting with each other, but not many eating. I guess we were a bit early for the dinner rush... or late? The tables outside by the waterfront were all full when we came in, so perhaps dinner had come and gone already.

Our sandwiches were surprisingly good for pub food-- real salmon fillet went in to the salmon salad, not canned! You could tell because there were bits of skin and a good number of sizeable chunks of meat, instead of all pulverized fish pulp. The sandwiches were so big that each of us could only finish half, so we wrapped the leftovers up in a napkin and took them home for later. We ended up scraping the salad out of the bread (which was just brown sandwich bread).

At "home" we lit a fire in the fireplace (Doc demonstrating his pyrotechnic skills par excellance :)), made some "drinking chocolate", and read until it got dark, which is quite late!! It was still reasonably light out (the sun had just started to set) around 10pm.

Limerick to Lauraugh and the Ring of Kerry

or... "Why I'm Grateful That The Rental Car Lady Talked Us in to Paying an Extra $200 for Zero-Deductible Insurance"

I woke up early on our first full day in Ireland, to the sounds of an idling tour bus outside our window. That went on for about an hour (7am to 8am) and was a harbinger of what was to come later in the day...

A quick shower, and we headed down to the breakfast included in our room rate. Full Irish for both of us! On the plate, clockwise from top left: black pudding, white pudding, a grilled tomato, beans, ham, hash browns, sausage, and egg. I really liked the white pudding, but the black pudding wasn't as good as yesterday. Doc cleaned his plate! :) (not pictured: the silver coffee pot and sizeable creamer that we had all to ourselves)

After breakfast, we headed back to the Milk Market, where we had stopped yesterday after arriving. It was much more crowded! Outside the market building there were odds-and-ends stalls, selling everything from cheap made-in-China crap to plants to books and shoes. Lots of shoes. Doc liked the looks of some of them and we joked that we'd come back with suitcases full of shoes.

Inside it was more of a typical farmer's market, selling all kinds of veggies, fruits (some imported from Spain), cheeses, and meats. There was a little coffee shop in the middle, where we stopped for lattes. We were sad to notice a sign on the counter announcing that the city of Limerick had declined to renew their lease for the following season, and that they'd close their doors after June 9. They were offering a free cup of coffee to everyone that came by on the 9th.

We stopped and chatted with the vendors at a cheese stall, and bought a wedge of garlic-flavored cheddar. We also picked up a loaf of seeded bread, a quart of strawberries, a jar of spiced whiskey-marmalade, and a used book. The book-seller had some cute printed canvas bags for 5 euro, and we threw one of those in to make the change even. It says "If you go home with someone and they don't have any books, don't f**k them." Ha. We planned to eat the bread, cheese, and strawberries for lunch, and save some of the bread and the marmalade for upcoming breakfasts.

Sufficiently caffeinated after the market (actually, my latte was decaf, thankyouverymuch), we headed back to the hotel to pack and check out.

I snapped a couple of pictures of our hotel room, after re-making the bed. It was so cute when we came in, but of course we messed it all up by throwing our stuff all over the place.

There was some jockeying in the tiny parking lot to get out of our space, mostly because two other cars were waiting on us so they could 1) get out of the space next to us (they had been blocked in by another car) and 2) park in our spot, and we were taking our time trying to figure out where we were going!

Lucky us, the car came with a not-so-helpful map, and a very nice reminder sticker. <--- DRIVE ON LEFT, complete with arrow just in case you're like me and have to hold up your hands to figure out which one makes the "L" (and is therefore your left hand).

We got out of Limerick with no problems (well, only a few minor problems such as having to quickly change lanes... but the person behind us was the girl who had been parked next to us at the hotel, and she was nice and let us in. I think she was kind of lost, too). One of the first villages we came to was Adare, a really adorable little place with a main street lined with thatched-roof cottages. It had won some kind of "Tidy Towns" award.

It seemed like half of Ireland must have agreed that it was pretty adorable, because it was also very crowded. We parked and walked around for a bit (bought two postcards, contemplated some wool hats) and decided to move on.

We drove for a while on smaller national roads (two-lane, non-divided highways), which was a little bit scarier than the motorways (the big, multi-lane highways) until we came to Killarney, one of the major towns on the Ring of Kerry.

The Ring of Kerry is a big tourist destination, a scenic road around some of the prettiest parts of Co. Kerry. It's a national secondary road, which means it's the same speed limit as the national routes (100 km/hr), but has narrower lanes.

We decided to keep going on the road until Killerney National Park, just a few miles ahead, and picnic there. That was where the Ring of Kerry actually started.

Killerney National Park was the place to be on a holiday weekend Saturday. The parking lot was almost full, and the spaces were definitely made for small cars. Our car was small, but I was used to maneuvering small cars into spaces made for big cars, like at home. There was a bit less room for error, here!

We walked over to a manicured lawn overlooking a nice lake, and ate our bread, cheese, and strawberries. There were places to rent horses and carriages for a tour of the park, and lots of families on bikes with kiddie trailers behind them.

There were also a surprising number of cows, given that it was a national park. We were kind of surprised that it was so... maintained.

This part of the park had signs for gardens, so we decided to explore a little. There were beautiful (and enormous!) rhododendron plants everywhere.

There seemed to be just as many international tourists as Irish tourists around.

We found a path that was a little quieter, and wound through the woods, and followed that for a ways. We started to see signs for a waterfall further on, so kept going.

There were other people here and there, so we figured it was probably a good route to follow. At one point, there was a sign with a picture of a little hiker on it, which was used for the Waymarked Trails around the country. There were yellow, blue, and red arrows. I guessed that the red trail was probably one to be avoided, since we were kind of in a hurry to get back on the road (but still wanted to stretch our legs and see the waterfall), so we opted for the yellow one.

The trails were really nicely maintained, and even had stone steps at some points.

About 1km later, we reached the waterfall.

Pretty! But crowded. The sign with the hiker symbol on it had said "Circle Trail," and the path kept going above the waterfall. So we kept climbing.

Doc was perhaps a tiny bit less than thrilled that we were still walking, and had yet to call the owner of the cottage we were renting tonight. In my defense, I didn't realize we had quite the drive ahead of us that we did...

There were some nice views of the lake from the trail, and it was very quiet since most people seemed to turn back after the waterfall.

I thought this looked like a fairy tree...

And here's an interesting leaf statue.

We got to the end of the loop and saw the trailhead sign explaining what all the color-codes were. Our yellow route was predicted to take 45-50 minutes. Based on that, we made pretty good time!

We decided to skip the tea house/ cafe on the way out and get back on the road. We were just about to the start of the famous Ring of Kerry, and were looking forward to the scenic drive.

HA.

As we left the National Park, I saw a big sign that looked like a warning on the side of the road. Something about traveling in only one direction... I asked Doc if he had caught what it said, and he said it was only for cyclists. Oh, whew.

All was well until the middle line disappeared, and the lanes became impossibly narrow, and we came upon our first tour bus traveling in the opposite direction. I was not sure how they even allowed tour buses on that road. The lane was not wide enough for two cars, let alone a car and a tour bus. The posted speed limits were still 100 km/hr, but I was going about 40 km/hr, much to the joy of the cars behind me, I'm sure. In many places the yellow lines marking the edge of the road disappeared as well. At one point we stopped so a tour bus could squeeze past us, and when we started up again we heard scratching all down the passenger (left) side of the car. I guess I had run in to some foliage... Better than the outcroppings of rocks I narrowly avoided on several other occasions.

I learned that they make a specific road sign for "Oncoming Traffic in Middle of Road."

This is supposedly the most scenic drive in Ireland, and both of us were so freaked out that we don't have a single picture of it. Doc told me later that people actually rent sports cars to drive around the Ring of Kerry. Those people are completely insane, and if I ever meet one of them I might smack them.

I think much of my problem is that I underestimate how much space I actually have on the right hand side. Every time I see a car coming towards us on the right, all of my learned reflexes from 13 years of driving on the right hand side cause me to swerve to the left. I guess that's better than swerving to the right? Which would probably be the correct "reflex" if we were in the US (to swerve onto the right hand shoulder). It's like a punch to the gut every time.

I just kept telling myself, we just have to get to Kenmare (the next little town), and then we'll be at the cottage. Well... that wasn't quite accurate. We were supposed to call the owner of the cottage when we got to Kenmare, so she could give us directions to the cottage in Lauragh. We got to Kenmare, there was pretty much one road through town, and it was packed with tourist cars. Not seeing anywhere expedient to park, we stopped at a Quickie Mart type place with ample space to turn around. I felt better when we got stuck behind an even slower vehicle, and they turned in to the same place. Doc ran in to see if they sold cell phone cards... they did not carry our cell phone brand.

(We bought a "Lycamobile" SIM card in Limerick, which was a bit of a "who's on first" exchange. Me: Do you carry SIM cards? Man: What we carry is Lycamobile. Me: [Pause] Like a mobile? Man: Yes, it's very cheap for calling internationally. Me: But you don't have SIM cards? Man: What we have is Lycamobile. Me: Will it work in a mobile phone? Man: [Pause].............      Sadly, Lycamobile seems to be some weirdo brand that only foreigners buy, and hardly anyone in non-touristy parts of Ireland seems to have heard of it.)

So... Doc suggested that we keep driving, because he's pretty sure he knows how to find Lauraugh, between the map we have and the signs on the road. Please note: at this point, I should have gotten out of the car and gone in and asked where the nearest payphone was. Instead, I agreed to keep driving, thinking that surely the worst of the road was over. It was, but my nerves were pretty much fried at this point, and I could have been on the emptiest, widest, smoothest, and flattest highway in the world and probably still would have been jumpy.

18 more kilometers of narrow, twisting roads through mountains and along ridges where everyone else wants to go 100km/hr and pass each other and I'm going 40 km/hr and am pretty sure it's only wide enough for one vehicle... and I may have had a small breakdown. There may have been tears, there may have been threats ("I swear, if I have to drive even ONE more kilometer than strictly necessary, you will be WALKING back to the nearest payphone!"). Each place that I might have turned off came up too suddenly to stop, especially with a train of cars trailing me. That said, everyone seems to have brakes in tip-top shape, and tiny light weight cars, thankfully. Also, I have yet to be honked at, flipped off, or otherwise have anger directed toward me and my sh*tty driving skillz. Knock on wood. Hopefully the car stalling out when I forget to downshift going into a roundabout is just a source of amusement for everyone. Hopefully. 

(It's not that I can't drive stick... it's that I don't normally drive stick, on the left, from the right, and have only seen one or two roundabouts [prior to this week] in my entire driving career. It's all just a little overwhelming, and I guess stalling is far preferable to other errors.) 

Finally, we saw a large-ish sign advertising O'Shea's Groceries, which gave me enough time to put on the blinker and brake in a controlled manner, so as not to further irritate the cars behind me.

"Wouldn't it be funny if this is the same O'Shea  that owns our rental cottage?" Doc asked. "How many O'Sheas can there be in this village?"

We were greeted by a woman and a dog, both waiting anxiously by the door. Doc got out to ask about a payphone while I tried to gather my nerves back together in the car. I could see Doc and the lady shaking hands and laughing amiably. 

She came over and introduced herself as THE Mrs. O'Shea that we rented the cottage from!

I really can't remember the last time I felt so relieved.

She seemed a little alarmed to see that I'd been crying, and invited us to drive across the road to the cottage. At first I almost considered refusing, but it was literally just across the road. I managed to not stall out in the uphill driveway, because I didn't bother to take it out of first.

Finally! We were able to enjoy the view instead of keeping our eyes glued to the road.

Mrs. O'Shea even had a fire going in the little fire place for us! She said it made it nice and cozy (cosy? ;)) at night.

The sitting room was filled with information on local activities, restaurants, and sites to see.

And there were two sweet cards-- one a "welcome" card and one a congratulatory "on your wedding day" card-- waiting for us in the bedroom! And... A BOTTLE OF WINE!!!!! 

The kitchen was super cute, and Mrs. O'Shea had prepared some tea for us, including a basket full of snacks, and a pitcher of cream. God bless the Irish and their cream. They get it. They truly do.

After our very tasty tea (I've decided that Irish Breakfast tea is far superior to other lesser black teas now) and chocolate-covered biscuits, we decided that we should probably go ahead and find somewhere to eat some dinner. That bread, cheese, and strawberries seemed very long ago already.

We drove down to the nearest pub (after a couple of wrong turns), and found that it was completely filled with a wedding party. Feeling a bit out of place and not wanting to interrupt, we opted for the second option, back in the other direction. The Lake House, about 6km back up the road toward Kenmare.

Doc ordered the cod:

And I ordered the seafood chowder:

After dinner we strolled over to the lake for which the pub was named to have a look.

And then drove back to the cottage for some much-needed sleep.

But not before stalling out twice on the uphill driveway, and then running in to the retaining wall. The important part is, the wall is fine. And we have zero-deductible insurance on the car.