We woke up and ate breakfast while watching a baby wagtail get fed on our car! It was adorable, and also pooped about 20 times on our roof. Our plan this morning was to head
out right after breakfast, but we couldn't leave Killarney without exploring a little more! We first went to Ross Castle, which was right near our B&B. It was gorgeous, situated at the edge of the lake. We then had to say goodbye to the beautiful park. This time we drove to the other end, entering the park closer to the Torc Waterfall. We hiked up by the waterfalls, and discovered that you could hike for several more hours -- something I'd love to do on another trip. We wished we'd brought a picnic to read and relax in the gardens by the Muckross House or had time to wander by the lake again...
But, it was time to go, so we had a quick snack of stale rice cakes and were on our way! The Ring of Kerry is one of the most beautiful drives in Ireland. It is also, unfortunately, full of tourists on big buses that don't fit in the narrow windy roads, but fully worth it for the views. We drove the first half of the ring, from Killarney to Portmagee, with the ocean on our left the entire way. It's an incredible mix of forest, fields, mountains, islands/peninsulas, ocean, and beaches... with tiny little villages or solitary cottages here and there. Periodically we'd pass through a larger town with shops and tourists and a sign designating it a winner of the "Tidy Town" competition. In one such tidy town, Sneem, we stopped for a tasty lunch with a pretty view, and then had some Jameson flavored ice cream.
After a few hours, and some tricky encounters in roads that could only fit one car at a time (lined with bramble-covered stone walls), we arrived quite late in Portmagee. We checked into the Portmagee Heights -- one of the splurges that I'd deemed worth it. We got an ocean-view room, and found out that, because it was our honeymoon, she'd given us the very same room where JJ Abrams stayed during the filming of The Force Awakens! The building was just as pretty as in the pictures and was run by the sweetest family. They even left us a tea set as a honeymoon gift.
We quickly drove to Valentia Island before it got too late and walked around Geokaun Mountain -- something I remembered as a highlight to my trip last time. The views were once again exquisite! And it smelled amazing -- grass, flowers, sheep, and ocean, and a general freshness. Last time there were sheep everywhere, fluffy, with lambs in tow. This time there were no tiny lambs, and the few sheep we saw were freshly shorn, but it was still neat to walk around without any people in sight, but dozens of sheep wandering uninhibited.
On the way home, we stopped at The Moorings restaurant by the water. Dan got crab claws, prawns, and "the best chowder ever" in his life; it was chock full of several fish. All of his food was caught in Portmagee. For my meal, they happily cooked up a dish with pasta, butter, plain chicken, and cucumbers, to which I added tons of salt. It amazed me, again, how much more difficult it is to get these individual ingredients, without sauce or previously seasoned, in the US.
After dinner, we walked home, said hi to some local cows, ogled the views and flowers, and then took long-awaited showers in our very fancy bathroom! We finished the night by enjoying a sunset over Valentia Island, sitting outside with very emphatically mooing cows and prancing calves.
