We awoke to showers early this morning and decided to wait a bit as we saw the weather was going to improve and improve it did providing us with the perfect day to explore the 179 Klm or 111 miles of the Ring of Kerry. The Ring of Kerry is a ring road that follows the coastal contours of the Kerry’s Iveragh Peninsula. It is one of Ireland’s most famous circuits and popular holiday routes to follow. It is much more than a simple driving route, it is an iconic destination wrapped in stunning visual history, with diverse wildlife scattered across Ireland’s lush green hills. It is rated as one of the top circular drives in the world. An example of this history is a view known as the “Ladies view”. This view was taken in by Queen Victoria’s ladies in waiting in 1861 and the were in such awe of it, they named it this. The route essentially starts and ends in Killarney, many recommend to do it counterclockwise, to go with the buses that must follow in this direction. The reason for this is the many narrow gaps where two buses coming at each other would not be able to pass. In my research, if you are in a car and self driving it is better to go clockwise and this is for two reasons. One, the views are mostly on your left and as you are driving on the left side of the road, it is much easier to pull off and then pull back on. Two, the many buses, cars and cyclists go in the anticlockwise direction, so you can easily get stuck behind a bus or worse a slow cyclist. We saw this a few times on a few uphills where a cyclist was holding up twenty plus cars. Not sure if we just went at the right time or the right way but we had very little traffic or delays during our time around the entire route. The route if you do not stop should take you three and a half hours, but that would be silly, we added the Skellig ring road to our tour today, an additional eighteen kilometres, so all in we were about seven and a half hours. Adding this meant you get to see the Skellig island, an island where the monks were sent for the penance between the 6 and 12th centuries. If you recall your history from this time, they thought the world was flat and being sent here was scary as from here you were on the edge of the world. The additional bonus of this add on is the viewing of the Kerry cliffs, again buses could not get here due to the narrow, narrow roads, these cliffs are simply fantastic.
So another incredible day, the pics take you in the clockwise direction starting with the Ladies view, then the Kenmare stones and then around to our lunch break at Derrynane House, up the Kerry Cliffs and back to Killarney. Nice dinner in town. Our pics will be in a few parts today, just so many to choose from, hope you enjoy, wore my new lucky hat today...
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