We went down for breakfast in the morning and I ordered a traditional Irish breakfast and Rachel got the vegetarian breakfast with bacon. The waitress informed us that that was not an unusual order. I tried the blood pudding, this before I was told what it was, and I wasn’t a big fan. It wasn’t disgusting, but not something I wanted to eat more of.

It was sunny and beautiful until we stepped outside, at which it promptly started raining. We wandered to a shop and bought a large, green plaid umbrella. Onward!

This was the one and only time we opened this umbrella. We ended up leaving it hanging off of a garbage can at the airport since it was too big to put in our suitcases.

We drove from Kenmare through Killarney National Park. The clouds parted and we were able to view Lady’s View (pictured above) as we came down the hill side. We stopped and went on a 45 minute hike to the Torc waterfall. The ground and trees were covered in moss, and there were ferns everywhere. It reminded me a lot of New Zealand’s South Island.

I got a horrible stomach ache in Killarney. It got so bad that I had to pull over in some little town after we’d left the city. Perhaps the uterus gods are angry at me for making so many rubber ones.

We continued onto the Dingle Peninsula, following the Wild Atlantic Way, a world famous drive. I kept think wild atlantic salmon the whole time. We stopped in Dingle Town and wandered around. We bought a sliotar at a sports store, the name of the ball they use in Hurling, an Irish sport. The town was very quaint, it had a number of brightly coloured store fronts near the harbour. They even have their own local dolphin named Fungie. Kind of an odd name, sounds more like a botanist’s pet mushroom.

Further down the peninsula we stopped to look at some stone beehive huts. Entrance was 2 euros, Rachel walked right by the little shack where a man was hidden away, waiting to collect his money. It’s set up so that it seems free until you’ve walked too far to turn back without seeming cheap. They were cool though! They were homes that were stones stacked in a circular pattern. There is aplenty of stone in Ireland, no wonder all of their fences are made of it. In Canada there are a lot of trees.

Rachel was blown away by the sea, I had to scurry after her. She was easy to spot in her bright teal coat, a symbol of WestJet floating away into the Atlantic. Soon WestJet will release its cruise line. It was only a a publicity stunt. Miraculously, she was able to dry off in time for us to take photos.

Rachel was blown away by the sea (not literally). There was a small road turn out that we took near the tip of the peninsula that led down to a small inlet. The road became very steep continued down to the beach. The tide was out and there was water trickling from the partly grass covered cliffs over the sand and to the sea. The ocean is to the right, and along the coast we got our first glimpse of the onyx black rock formations that are so often pictured on Dingle postcards. Rachel was ecstatic and didn’t want to leave. Maybe we’ll live on a beach one day. The sun was going down though and we had to get going.

At the tip of the peninsula (I think it was called Slea Head?) we stopped and walked out to the edge. It looked like the land was slowly getting eaten away by the wind and the sea. Inland it was quite flat, and then would rise out to meet the sea, forming steep cliffs.

The road looped back around and we returned to Dingle for the night. We got room 12 at Murphy’s bar BnB, 70 euros for the night. I had some delicious fish and chips for dinner and Rachel got a slightly overdone steak at a mom and pop shop around the corner. She said it was still really good.

Rachel reminds me of her dad in this picture 🙂