Around the ring

Day 27 -  Killarney

The Ring of Kerry is a very popular 179km scenic drive along the Wild Atlantic Way, starting and finishing in Killarney. Tour buses travel anti- clockwise and most cars travel clockwise. Killarney is packed with tourists and tour buses so we expected a fairly hectic day on narrow roads with frequent pulling over to let each other pass.

We left Killarney just before 9.30am with our first stop at the lookout called Ladies View, named after Queen Victoria who visited the spot in 1861, as it was a favourite place of her ladies-in-waiting. We were surprised that there were plenty of parking spots and not a lot of people, a good start to the morning. 

We skipped Kenmare as we'd visited yesterday, drove through the pretty town of Sneem then took the narrow road to Staigue Stone Fort. The ring fort is one of the largest intact and oldest stone forts in Ireland. It's dated between 300 and 400 BC and built in a circle with a high wall made of stone without any mortar holding it together. On the way back down the track we had some hairy moments with drivers who weren't really keeping up their end of the bargain in pulling over to give sufficient space.

We detoured to Derrynane Beach and went for a short walk along the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. We chose picturesque Waterville for a lunch stop only to find that there weren't many cafes, mainly pubs where the tour buses had got there before us so we drove on, stopping at a lookout along the way with great views of the coast.

We decided to branch off the ring and take the 50km Skellig Ring around the Iveragh Peninsula. We initially thought we'd made a mistake as the narrow roads and heavy rain meant we couldn't see that much. We reached Kerry Cliffs, by that time the rain had stopped so we decided to delay lunch and walk to the cliffs while the weather was good. The cliffs were very striking and definitely worth the detour as they were the highlight of the day. By the time we returned to the car the rain had started again so we we drove on to Carhersiveen for a quick lunch stop.

Cahergall Stone Fort, another prehistoric ring fort, was close by so we drove there, the rain quite steady now. From there we drove back to Killarney, arriving just after 4pm. Somehow we had missed most of the tourist buses and the large groups of tourists we were expecting, and had quite a peaceful day.

We decided we'd had enough of pub food and gambled on a Thai restaurant near the hotel. Although the food wasn't what you'd consider authentic, it was still quite tasty, M was especially happy with the Thai style potatoes, pretty much that restaurant's version of the spice bag, and something that really needs to be introduced back home!