Brenna Abroad

We took our last few days of vacation more slowly, giving ourselves some time to relax and read and wind down before getting back to the real world.

After our last night in Dingle, we were on the road early to get to our ferry. For a while, the GPS on my phone was just not working, and I was afraid we were going to actually have to use a real map (the horror!). Fortunately, I managed to trick my GPS into working again, and we were off, driving over the beautiful Conor Pass.  This road was scarier than I was expecting, as it was way up high on the side of a cliff, and the road was narrow, frequently becoming one lane with nothing but the smallest of stone walls keeping you from flying off. Absolutely beautiful, though, in the bright morning light.

Our ferry dropped us off on the Loop Head peninsula, and we went up to Kilkee to see the Kilkee cliffs, but then continued on, driving along the coast as much as possible.

We finally ended up at Cliffs of Moher, along with a billion other people. Fortunately, the cliffs really were a beautiful site and made up for the hordes of people, and we walked a ways down toward Doolin to get away and get some more views, listening to the thousands of birds below us.

Once we had our fill, we walked back and drove to Doolin for lunch before driving the rest of the way through the Burren, a very lunar-looking landscape (interesting, though not terribly attractive), to end up in Kinvarra.  I love Kinvarra. It’s a small village on the bay about a 40 minute drive to Galway, but has its fair share of restaurants and pubs and Dunguire castle, and aside from the tourists, everyone knows everyone.

The following day, we had planned on driving through Connemara, but we were a bit tired of driving, so decided to just go into Galway instead, and I’m glad we did. I hadn’t really planned on spending any time in Galway, but it’s a wonderful city. The weather was perfect, and there are several blocks that are pedestrian only, so people were just walking through, shopping and eating and drinking, sitting out on patios, listening to street performers, happy as can be.

I know my opinion of places is highly dependent on weather, but I really, really liked the city.

We had a drink on a patio visiting with an English couple about American and UK politics (everyone is very eager to talk about how in the world Trump is a contender for president). We have also noticed a lot of people from the KC area, seeing people in Royals shirts, KU shirts, Boulevard Brewery shirts, UMKC shirts, etc.

That evening, we went out in Kinvarra and listened to some trad music at a pub on the water, which was fascinating and enjoyable and made ever the more entertaining by the very, very drunk people who had come over after the soccer game. We also got to see the castle at sunset with two swans in the water right outside it, and how can you get more picturesque than that?!

On our last full day, we decided to go on back to Galway again since we liked it so much, and the weather was spectacular. We walked around, enjoying the different street performers.

I had read about a vegetarian Indian food stall in the market that was supposed to be really good, so we went to try and find it for some lunch. As soon as we sat down with our food, though, I looked to my right and there was the stall that I had meant to eat at:

And here’s the one that we did eat at:

So you can see why there was confusion. One was Indian food that was “PURE VEGETARIAN FOOD” and the other was “PURE AND AUTHENTIC INDIAN VEGETARIAN AND VEGAN FOOD”. My bad. Oh well, you can’t go wrong with Indian food anyway.

We spent the evening back in Kinvarra, walking by the bay and relaxing at the house. To be honest, we were winding down, and I had gotten into my book, so spending half the day relaxing, and the other half the day walking around a lively city in the sunshine was really the best way to end the trip.

I was sad to leave, but boy was I ready to see my pups.

We had another peninsula drive (the third peninsula in a row) for our fourth day in Ireland. This time it was the Slea Head drive, a relatively short excursion on the Dingle peninsula. We did it backwards which, on one hand, was nice because we didn’t get stuck behind cars and tour buses, but on the other hand, all the signs were pointing the opposite direction so we missed a few things we would have liked to have seen.

As far as actual views, I’d say Slea Head offered my favorites. There was a lot of green.

And several beautiful beaches.

Ocean views galore.

And we walked up this hill that had gorgeous views all around. First there was the beach and its neighboring cove with mountains in the background.

And the Blasket Islands on one side.

And these gorgeous sloped cliffs on the others (side note: If you notice the trailers on the nearest cliff, that is where Star Wars is currently filming for the next movie. The road up to it is a temporary metal one that was built just for their filming).

One of the main attractions on the drive is the Bee Hive huts, but we had already seen similar huts on Skellig Michael, and these ones looked awfully busy and charged a fee, so we drove on.

We ended up back in Dingle town in time for lunch which was delicious and involved no fires this time around. Afterward, we explored the town a bit more, getting off the main street, and found ourselves at the pub Dick Mack’s.

This place was something else. When you first walk in, it’s a relatively small room with the main bar taking up half of it, and a working leather shop on the other. Then you go through a maze of rooms, all full of character. My favorite was the room with the fireplace.

They had a second bar in the back that wasn’t being worked at the time, but led me to believe the place gets pretty packed in the evenings.

Out back was a nice patio area, so that’s where we went to enjoy our Guinness. A very drunk, very old man was out there shouting slurred, unintelligible gibberish to some other man. Everyone stared for a bit trying to figure out if this was a friendly encounter or confrontational, but the other man laughed and came up to his table, so all was well.

That night, we decided to head back to the hill with the gorgeous views for the sunset. We got there around 9:30 and hung out until closer til 10, when the sun finally disappeared. Kansas has its own brand of beautiful sunsets, since you can see for such a long ways, but there’s nothing like seeing the sun dip behind the water, casting beautiful pink and purple hues over it.

The next day, we decided to take it easy, so we slept in for the first time all trip, made breakfast, read our books, and just relaxed. We went back into town for lunch and decided to try and see Fungie the dolphin.

Fungie has been Dingle’s resident dolphin for over 30 years. He lives out in the bay, and no one really knows why he hasn’t left, but he does indeed seem to be happy there. They have built quite the tourism industry around him, taking boats out constantly for tourists to see him. We didn’t feel like paying money and sitting on a boat, though, so we took a walk out to the lighthouse. We sat there, watching as tourist boats came and went one after the other, and Fungie made tiny little appearances here and there, just coming up enough to breathe. After a while, he got playful and decided to swim between two of the boats as they took off down the bay. We could hear the people on board cheering every time he leaped up over the water. We followed along on the shore and finished the walk back.

After that, we stopped for some ice cream (I have noticed there are ice cream shops everywhere in Ireland), and went back home to hang out the rest of the evening.

Our third day in Ireland was our favorite day for the whole trip (so far at least). We left our house nice and early to drive the Ring of Kerry at a relaxed pace on down to Portmagee. While I would agree the Ring of Beara is better, the Ring of Kerry has some pretty decent sights of its own.

And then we arrived in Portmagee, a cute port town where we would be hopping on a small boat to head out on the Atlantic. Signs warned us of the dangers we had ahead, but I knew all of this already.  We found our captain and before long, hopped on board and took off.

The boat ride was definitely rougher than I was expecting. Our boat was up and down, up and down, while water continued to splash in at us. It took 40 minutes to get out to Skellig Michael, and actually landing was a whole new ordeal. Here close to the island, the boat was tossed to and fro, rocking and rolling until we were able to pull into the landing area. And then the captain and co-captain were hard at work, getting us pulled up close enough to hop off, and helping each of us along the way.

But then it was time to explore. Birds were everywhere. The Skelligs are important nesting sites, and thousands upon thousands of birds circled overhead, while even more were wandering around the cliffs. I saw a puffin fly overhead and got SO EXCITED. Little did I know, that I would be seeing them all around me in just another few minutes (there were around 10,000 on the island while we were there, according to a guide).

There are more than 600 stairs to climb to get to the monastery at the top of Skellig Michael. Monks had arrived here in the 6^th century and got to work building their beehive huts. After the boat ride I had just experienced, I cannot come close to imagining what would lead a group of people to decide to hop in a tiny wooden boat, without a motor, and cross that wild Atlantic, and then somehow get onto this cliffy island in those waves, and decide it looked like a good place to live. But they did.

I’m sure they thought they were at the end of the world as they did so. And when storms weren’t lashing at the island, I’m sure it was a quiet, peaceful place to worship. And they built these crazy little stairs we were climbing up, surrounded by puffins, and they built the beehive huts at the top to live in, worship in, cook in, etc. A whole little city. And now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

For food, they would climb back down, climb into their boats, and fish. They would try to store up enough fish to last them through the winter. They would also use the birds, eating the eggs and the meat of the puffins (breaks my heart 🙁 ). At the base of the island, they would grow vegetable gardens, where the terrain was better suited. They also introduced rabbits to the island at some point, and for a short period of time, goats as well. This also is insane to me because clearly that means they made trips to the mainland and back. For water, they had to collect rain water as there was no fresh water on the island.

The monks left the island in the 12^th century. There were two lighthouses added in the 1800s, and a few repairs made back then, but the majority of the site is exactly as it was when the monks lived on the island.

While at the top, a woman gave us the history of the island, which was truly fascinating.

Its more recent claim to fame was as the site Rey found Luke in the final scene of the most recent Star Wars movie.

After our history lesson, we went off exploring, getting views of Little Skellig.

And exploring areas we hadn’t seen yet.

And also hiking up another cliff, this one without steps, to get a better view of where we had been.

We ate a small picnic here. It was an absolutely gorgeous day to visit the island, other than a strong wind that made the stairs (which have no rails or anything, FYI) quite intimidating. It’s only accessible in the summer months, when conditions are right. Even then, only a few people are allowed on each day (13 boat operators have permits to land on the island, and those boats are small). I felt so lucky to be there.

We slowly made our way back down those rock slab steps. I took my time taking millions of pictures of puffins because I just love them SO MUCH, guys. Also, did you know that they kind of sound like cows? And they mate for life? I found several little happy couple puffins, rubbing their beaks together all adorably and such.

At the bottom, we waited for our boat to pull up. This turned out to be even more difficult than it was the first time. My stomach dropped as I watched the boats bobbing around out on the powerful waves. Our boat was able to get a few people on board, but had to pull out and come back in to get the rest of us. Once again, I was astonished that people 1500 years ago had managed the journey over and onto this island, without the technology we have now, and the landing pad, and the steps.

We rode out to Little Skellig, and I was shocked by just how many birds were nesting there. The island looked white, which I had previously thought had to be a combination of birds and flowers, but no, they were all birds. And there were whole clouds of birds circling overhead. It was insane.

But the best part is when our guide pointed out the seals down on the bottom rocks. I only had my little waterproof camera out, so I couldn’t get great pictures of them, but there were several seals flopping around, not so gracefully.

The trip back to Portmagee seemed to go a bit more smoothly (or maybe we had just had very low expectations), and once there, we took off on the Ring of Kerry again, but cut over to the Dingle peninsula where we stopped at Inch beach.

We drove through brilliant green hills and valleys throughout the rest of our short drive to Dingle town.

Dingle town is quite charming, though definitely touristy. We walked down to the harbor, and then came back up for a quick drink at the pub, where dozens of cyclists were sitting drinking and relaxing, erupting in cheers and shouts every time a new cyclist rode on up.

We then went to a pretty nice restaurant overlooking the marina for dinner, sitting out in the sun room. During this dinner, Anthony managed to put his napkin in the candle. We looked up from shoveling food in our mouths to see we had a fire on our table.

Anthony kept trying to blow it out and just kept blowing fiery ashes into my lap. I, on the other hand, grabbed the rest of my glass of water, and dumped it over the table, extinguishing the fire. So we were sitting there, eating our dinner on our wet table with the charred napkin remains, and Anthony dropped a chunk of his bread on the floor, and for some reason, this just completely set me off into a fit of giggles. I was laughing so hysterically that I was crying. All these old rich people eating around us were probably staring at us, wondering what the hell we were doing there. I’m laughing again just remembering it, and I still can’t figure out why it was so freaking funny.

Anyway. Pride gone, we finished our dinner, paid, and left. We drove out of town a bit to get to our house on the peninsula, which we are both pretty dang pleased with.

I took a lovely bath and then hung out in our sun room overlooking Mount Brandon for the rest of the evening, windows open to listen to the lambs baa-ing and the brook babbling. Can’t complain one bit.