Thursday May 15th

Time to move on again. This time to Killarney in Co. Kerry.  We had to negotiate the dreaded roadworks and diversions again in Mallow but we have learned when to ignore the SatNav.  

 It was too early to check into our hotel so we headed for the Killarney National Park.  We chose to see the park from a jaunting car which is just an Irish name for a fairly basic horse drawn cart.  Most of the horses being used are Irish Draught Horses and pies was being pulled by a skewbald called Charlie.

The section of the park that we saw was beautiful. It has 3 lakes full of salmon and trout (or so Nealy O’Leary told us). Nealy was our driver and he had a very thick Kerry accent which, combined with his missing front teeth (all of them!) made him rather difficult to understand. Luckily he knew that people had problems so everything he said was immediately repeated.

The park contained the beautiful Muckross House and gardens, 

three lakes,

a herd of Kerry cattle,

A waterfall

and wonderful views of the mountains.

Part of the trip had us sharing a major road with traffic but the horses were not fazed at all.

After our jaunt on the jaunting cart, Charlie obliged by posing for a photo, 

then we headed off around the Ring of Kerry,

a road with magnificent views and spectacular mountains

 but which we had to share with the locals.

Our final stop for the day was Sneem, the site of another Presentation  convent, but this one closed down in 1891 and has been in the same family since that time.  It is now being used as a B&B and the owner was only too keen to show us around.

As you can see, it was an absolutely beautiful day!