Ozgirl organised a weekend road-trip for us as she is soon to be leaving Ireland and heading back to OZ via Scandinavia.
We hired a car and hit the road on Sat morning, drove through Kinsale and Clonakilty on our way to the Ring of Baera (a loop over the Beara Peninsula).
Spent the night in Killarney at a lovely BnB and the next morning explored a bit around Killarney before driving onto the Dingle Peninsula and back home again.
It was pretty great although there was a lot of driving on windy roads involved. I personally felt that the scenery was very similar to NZ (grass, sheep, cows, ocean etc). Beau disagreed (ruins, stone walls everywhere, old small towns in bright colours, donkeys etc).
I was very happy to see lots of trees :) Having mostly been in large towns/cities and on major roads we hadn't seen any *forests* but this weekend we got to visit national parks and it was great to have gorgeous trees everywhere. The weird thing is that a lot of trees/foliage are similar to that found in NZ, because of course, the settlers brought it with them eg violets, flowering cherries, magnolias, beech trees, pine trees, just *more*. Not only that though, there are also *lots* of cabbage trees in Co Cork and Kerry! There is also quite a lot of flax too.
Other things to note:
There are more ruins on the Dingle Peninsula than you can shake a stick at. I know, we tried. There just aren't *that* many sticks available.
Beau and I are still not used to taking holiday pics. We forgot to pack the camera!
If you are charging tourists to visit a ruin on your land, have a handy cute animal to greet them (donkeys or sheep dogs are A-OK).
Killarney is the Hen's Party Capital of southern Ireland. Seriously, we saw over 5 groups while we were out having dinner. The only thing that outnumbers "hens" in Killarney on the weekend is american tourists.
Porridge made with cream and Baileys is yum.
It may be hard to believe, but NZ country roads are wider and therefore IMHO better than Irish roads. I mean, at least our country roads actually *are* 2 lanes. I have driven to Cape Reinga in a van and I have driven to the Dursey Island cable car in a *small* car. Cape Reinga was less scary. One lane uncovered roads with stone walls on each side do not a confident Giffy make.
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