Killarney- 24th till 27th September

We spent a few days in Killarney, in the south west corner of Ireland.  It's a very beautiful part of Ireland and probably the most "Irish" scenery we have come across.  

One of the highlights was a tour around the Ring of Kerry.  This was one of the first bus tours we have ever done and it was actually pretty good!  We did a tour because we had been told that the roads were awful and terribly narrow (buses are only allowed to travel in an anti-clockwise direction) but they turned out to be fine, definitely no worse than others we have been on.  Doing the tour did, however, provide us with other opportunities we wouldn't have had, such as the sheep dog demonstration!  It was actually strangely fascinating to watch the farmer control the two dogs with whistles and word instructions.  It didn't sound like the words my Dad used to use for the dog though.....!

Being on a bus also gave us a chance to completely relax and enjoy the scenery....

One of Killarney's lakes, taken from the bus.

An ancient stone circle.  Stone circles were built during the Bronze age for ritual and ceremonial purposes.

At the tip of the peninsula.  As you can tell it's a pretty grey day.  It's also really cold and very windy.  So naturally that's an ice-cream van on the right there!

The Sneem River.

Statue of Steve, the Crusher, Casey.  Grrrrrrr.

A Panda Sculpture donated to the town of Sneem by the Peoples Republic of China.  Looks strikingly like Donatello from the TMNT's to me.

Every Irish person we talked to on this day kept saying how lucky we were with the weather?!

Killarney itself was definitely a tourist town, with all that that entails.  We did manage to find a good organic food market though and a great restaurant, the Smokehouse.

Rib-tastic

Crab-claws.  Definitely one of my favourite things in the world at the moment.

Rack of lamb makes Morgan a happy boy.

 After leaving Killarney we headed north to the Cliffs of Moher.  The Cliffs take there name from an old fort that once stood at the Southern most end of the cliffs and are one of Ireland's most popular tourist destinations.  They were pretty spectacular.

Spot the New Zealanders- jandles (check), shorts and wooly hat (check), rugby jumper (check).

Clearly Morgan finds this very, very boring.

Awwwwww.

 Our drive north from the Cliffs of Moher to Galway was probably one of our favourite drives yet.  As we headed away from the Cliffs we had incredible views out over the green fields and ocean.  We then descended to a plain where we drove between rounded hills completely devoid of any vegetation.  The road hugged the coast with gorgeous inlets, picturesque houses and stone fences. The area is known as The Burren, which means "great rock" in Irish.

View from the van.

Descending down onto the Burren

Barren hills of the Burren 

That shadow is from the motorhome.  By god it's big.

This is the first in my series of "Superfluous road signs".