Ireland, Day 4 - It probably could be ok, or maybe not...

We woke up in the morning for breakfast at the B&B. As is the standard, they have a buffet tablet set up with fruit, porridge, juices and various breads and biscuits and then they take your order for a hot breakfast. I once again got the Irish breakfast, but this time I left the black and white pudding alone. We talked with Brigid, the owner’s assistant, about our plans and she gave us a bunch of suggestions for things to see and outlined it all on a map so we knew what to do for the day.
Our first stop was Muckross House, an elegant mansion a few minutes away. After parking and walking up the grounds to the desk to purchase tours, we encountered the least helpful people in all of Ireland. Even though we were there when it opened, we couldn’t get in any tours until 3 pm and you can’t book ahead of time. The next day was also the free day, when anyone could come so we asked what time we needed to show up to ensure we get into a tour and the guy responded “I can’t even begin to speculate on that matter.” They were the least specific and decisive (and self aware) people we encountered - so we dubbed it the day of non-specifics by making the rule that no comment could be definitive. It had to be as non-specific as possible (i.e. if I ask if people are ready for lunch the appropriate response is “I may be hungry”). Try it with someone you hate - they will want to punch themselves in the face.
We decided to ditch it and head to the ring of Kerry since we could get a tour at 2 pm, or maybe 3:30 pm, or maybe not at all. Turns out that Ring of Kerry refers to a circuit around the county of Kerry area, not some ancient circle in a field or something else as I assumed (Megan’s note: it’s a road that goes around the area that has some unique and pretty flora/fauna - nothing ancient about it but Warren can keep thinking this if it makes him happy, or not). The Ring of Kerry is one of the most touristy areas of Ireland (i.e. a lot of people go there - not because it’s campy), but you are driving on a road that barely has enough space for one car, yet it a “2 lane highway”. We were advised to drive anti-clockwise as that would save us stress since tons of tour buses are on the teeny tiny road. We set off for Valentia Island which is a bit outside the ring of Kerry and as such, a little less touristy. We took a ferry over and wandered around the tiny town before grabbing lunch at a small cafe. They had DELICIOUS tika masala sandwiches there. I ordered a hot chocolate, which Mark promptly made fun of until the waitress informed him it was her favorite item on the menu. That shut him up and he spent the rest of lunch wishing he had gotten one.
We headed out towards some cliffs but we veered off in a bad direction and ended up at a quarry. Luckily, no one fell in to the quarry, and we turned around and headed back to the intersection where we had gone the wrong way.
This time we took the correct turn and ended up at tetrapod parkway, or as Megan liked to call it, trekapod parkway. Tetrapod parkway has impressions in the rock from the first fish that grew feet and walked around dragging their tails behind them. They couldn’t breathe air yet, so they stayed close to the ocean. It was SUPER windy and unfortunately when we opened up the car doors, our map blew away. They had given us an additional map when we took the ferry over which covered most of the same stuff but we didn’t have it all labeled with the good attractions. Now we were on our own :-(. We remembered that we wanted to drive to the top of the mountain on the island because it offered panoramic views of the area and we headed up. As we were driving up the 15-20% grade road, a car came barreling down the road. Even though uphill has the right of way, they didn’t move at all and at the last minute I had to swerve off the road to avoid them. Unfortunately, there was a 3 foot drop off on the side of the road and now I only had 3 wheels in contact with the ground. The only good thing was that it was so steep that I just let the car roll back and I got back onto the road. When we got to the top, there were a ton of sheep there and Megan decided she was going to be stealthy and try and touch them. She didn’t have much luck with that. After it started to rain again, we swung by a sweet candle shop where Megan did some shopping before cutting back across the Island to the Skellig Experience.
Apparently, some crazy monks had decided that wherever they were living wasn’t inhospitable, windy and treacherous enough so they moved to an offshore Island which was pummeled by the elements. Somehow they survived there for 600 years and left some amazing ruins behind. They carved stone stairs all through the mountainous Island and left some of their huts fairly intact. In better weather, you can take a cruise to the Island, but that was not available because it rains and is windy all the time in Ireland. I gather sometimes it snows or has some kind of weather that is worse. Hail maybe? I’m not sure..
After the Experience, we headed back to the mainland across a bridge to rejoin the ring of Kerry. We had taken our time, so at this point, by the time we got back, most of the small towns along the ring were closed down. We headed into Kenmare, where we had what was probably the best dinner of our trip at the Lime Tree Restaurant. Everything we ordered was amazing and we got great service. They gave us directions to take the highway back to Kilarney instead of the winding roads at night. It was nice to just take the highway up and not have to focus on running off the road, especially since we all were tired. We got back to the B&B late, but this time there was no grumpy man to greet us - UPGRADE!