Cobh, Killarney, & Dingle

Guys – we did it. We traveled an ENTIRE DAY without getting lost. Not once! We completely changed courses about twenty minutes into the drive, but that’s it. Matt is rocking our Nissan Micro and I am rocking as co-pilot. But I digress…before I get into our Wednesday, let me just say that we slept in the absolute coldest room of our lives on Tuesday night in Kinsale. I’m pretty sure that I have frostbite on my nose. Poor us – wasting away at a freezing cold B&B in Ireland! Despite the chill, Kinsale was Matt's favorite town so far. Anyway, we started the day heading to Killarney to check out some sites. Shortly into the drive, we remembered that we wanted to hit up this wild animal park in Fota, so we headed back East towards Cork and found it without any problems. Unfortunately the rain was insane, we were still freezing from our night in an igloo, and it cost twice as much as we originally had thought. Neither of us really wanted to suffer through the freezing rain/sleet, so we passed and headed to the town of Cobh (pronounced “Cove”). Previously named Queenstown, this is the port town that built the Titanic and its sister ship Olympic, and it was the last port of the Titanic. There’s a neat museum in town that gives a ton of Ireland mariner history in general – the convicts that were sent to Australia, the many emigrants during the famine, etc. It was interesting, but we both wished there were some more artifacts. One thing that really stuck out to both of us was a note from a young man who died on the Titanic that was found in a bottle a few years after the wreck. He had written a note that said something like, “From the Titanic: Goodbye to All” and he put it in was one that his mother had given him filled with holy water before going on his journey. Very somber. We also checked out a neat cathedral in Cobh.

After Cobh, we finally headed to Killarney. We made it to the Muckross House and were the last tour of the day. The grounds are stunning – 11,000 acres were donated along with the house, and the country has eventually bought up another 10,000+ acres to make up the Killarney National Park. It was of course raining so we didn’t get to explore as much as we’d like, but the house itself was neat. Queen Victoria stayed there in 1871 or so and the family who built the house went all out in preparation for her visit. This eventually led them to some hard financial times, so someone from the Guiness family bought it and rented it to hunters. After that, a Californian couple bought the house for their daughter, whose husband donated it to Ireland on her death. Only two families ever really lived there. Kind of a waste! We stayed at another B&B in Killarney – our best accommodations so far (but no Daisy!). We hit up a pub for dinner and went to a pub that was recommended by our Muckross House tour guide for some traditional irish music. An older man came in shortly into the set and busted out some Irish tap dancing – so cool and a great end to an otherwise bleak day!

We woke up on Thursday to MUCH better weather. We decided to head back to Muckross House to check out Torc Waterfall, which is a 20 minute hike from the house. The waterfall was pretty neat. We took a detour on the way back to the house. That was my favorite hike in my entire life – I felt like I was in fern gully. Moss was growing along everything – so pretty.

After our awesome hike, we grabbed lunch in town and headed to the Dingle Penninsula. We stopped by a beach on the way – snapped a few photos and watched some surfers – and then we arrived in the town of Dingle where we’re staying on a sheep farm! The owners have about 400 sheep. We’ve chatted with them a bit tonight and are going to ask some more sheep questions tomorrow. Sheep are all OVER Ireland, so this is pretty cool!

We’re having a ball!