This was definitely one of my top two favorite days of the trip. We found an Irish church to go to Sunday morning (it was exciting to be in a foreign country that speaks English!) and then headed off to the Ring of Kerry. The ring is a touristy loop of the County of Kerry and because we were staying in Killarney we were able to see some of the sites on different days. It's just over 100 miles total and with stops to get out and walk around, it was just too much with 3 kids. What we saw though, was breathtaking and the pictures just don't do it justice! For those of you planning a trip to Ireland (Jenny and Dawna!!!!!!!!) add this to your agenda...
How to Drive the Ring of Kerry,
Ballycarbery Castle and the Leacanabuaile Stone Fort. We fizzled in our planning/research during March, but I had a general idea of the "must sees" and our rental had wifi, so we would research at night for the next days activities, but once we were out of the house we were out of luck looking up something quickly on our iPhones since we were out of country. The Ring of Kerry has countless bus tours, but again, it wasn't something that seemed feasible with three little ones. We loved being on our own time schedule, even though we probably missed a lot!
Our first stop was on Valentia Island (there is a ferry to take across or it's just as easy to drive around and over the bridge!) The weather at the beginning was pretty bad, so we just stayed in the car for the Bray Head Loop Walk to see the Skellig Islands.
The wind was INSANE!!!! When you take a panoramic photo with the iPhone, you have to hold the phone steady as you move it from left to right, but the wind was blowing sooooo hard that this is how the picture turned out!!!
We didn't take Luke out in this wind, but it was pretty fun to stand there and get blown!
The day cleared up as we continued our drive....so beautiful!
We LOVED exploring here!!!!!! The ruins behind Hailey are known as the Ballinskelligs Castle/Tower or sometimes the McCarthy Tower...it was built in the 16th century to protect the bay from pirates and to potentially charge a tariff for incoming vessels. I don't know how erosion hasn't just wiped it out completely...it basically looks like it's on a sand bar! The tide was in so we had to cross an ankle deep ocean stream and I was the only one without waterproof shoes so the girls got a big kick out of Leevi giving me a piggyback across! ;)
We were able to climb up on the top of the tower...grass had grown all over it!
View from the top!
Exploring the inside...
The wind was KICKIN!
We saw this bright green seaweed everywhere and called it Leprechaun hair!
There was a little cafe near the beach parking lot where we got some coffee and ice cream and then decided to call it a day and head back vs. continuing the rest of the ring.
It's a little hard to see but there is a double rainbow!
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