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Day 2
Day 2 started with a lavish and mouth watering Irish Breakfast served at the hotel. It consisted of Juices, dry fruit cereals, milk, toasts, sausages, bacons, eggs and white and black puddings (This was the first time I had meat pudding, and it was delicious). After this huge breakfast, we packed off our backpacks and checked out of the hotel. I had planned this day for a tour around the Ring of Kerry with Deros travels. The bus was at 10:00 am and hence we had quite some time in hand till then. So we decided to walk through the Killarney Gardens.
We had a nice long walk inside the garden and through the forest with some beautiful views around. Few of which we tried to capture in our photo moments.We reached the Deros outlet in town center and booked the tickets for the trip. Tour started off round 10:00 am with our Driver Denis, explaining the history and geography of all the places around the Ring. He had pretty good knowledge about ‘Ring of Kerry’, which he kept telling us all throughout.The tour started with the Killarney town church, and then through Kenmare towards Killorgin. The trip was such that on our right hand side we had breathtaking views of the Sea or bay and on our left hand side we had the spectacular mountains and valleys. Since Kerry is situated on the far south of Ireland and its a peninsula we had such eye catching sceneries around us.When we reached Killorgin, we saw ‘King Puck’ for the first time. ‘King Puck festival’ is a Fair celebrated in Ireland every year, where a mountain goat is bought and crowned as the King of the ‘Puck fair’, which is followed by days of feasting, drinks, dances and merrymaking all around.
After this we took our first break at a Highway Inn called the ‘Red Fox Inn’. Passing through the towns of Killorgin, we reached the Bog village on the Ring of Kerry.Bogs is a wetland formed of Peat and dead plants and often mosses settled over thousands of years. After drying, this is used as fuel and for heating houses in Ireland. It is an excellent fuel used in winter seasons. After taking some photographs, Amit bought a cup of Irish coffee and offered me to taste. I was surprised by the different taste it gave! after some time I realised there was some kind of hard drink mixed in it! Got to know from Amit , it was whiskey with coffee which gave ‘Irish Coffee’ its unique and amazing taste. We went in to the cafe to check out how it was being made. It was a peg of whiskey on which coffee was poured and then topped with whipped cream! It was so tasty that would surely recommend others to try it! 🙂
Here we saw a small replica of a typical Bog village set up as a museum. Various kinds of huts and the inside were decorated and set up as a typical Bog village hut would look like. There was a gift shop where a lot of Irish gift items were displayed. I bought a Decorative plate from there which shows various places of Ireland on it. We moved on our trip through Kerry with the fantabulous views of the Renard bay on our right. We saw the majestic Skellig and small skellig rocks far away at the sea. It looked beautiful (but then we were in for more adventures next day when we would visit them by boat and climb them!) Passing through the town of Cahersiveen, we reached a viewpoint just before entering the town of Waterville. Took many pictures of the sea and cliffs overhanging the sea at that point and resumed our journey back again. Our next stop
was for lunch , after crossing Waterville at a seaside bar and restaurant. This restaurant, though a small one, had wonderful views of sea. We had a plate of seafood salad and a seafood chowder at this restaurant for our lunch along with cold drinks.Our onward journey resumed soon after this stop. Late at around 3:30 pm we stopped at a cross road , where we could see the Beautiful ‘Gap of Dunloe’ on our left side and ‘Molls gap’ on our right. I had some homemade ice cream from a cafe there and after taking pics we went on to our onward journey to our last stop, where we could see the beauty of the ‘Molls gap’ more clearly and at a nearer distance. Next stop was at a small town called Sneem where there was a small water cascade with a good view. More photographs taken ….
Most of the times Amit was the last person to board the bus as he would be engrossed in taking photos. (but he would forget about the photos as soon as he stepped back into house again. 😉 🙂 )
The later one hour of the trip was quite uneventful while we were returning back. Once we reached Killarney Denis took us through the Killarney National park, where we saw a lot of deers and bucks grazing around.
Finally he dropped us back to Killarney town center at around 5:30 pm. We took a taxi again from Mid kerry cabs for our journey to ‘Ferry view Hotel’ which was our next stay at Renard Point. It was a home converted B&B and was run by Jim and Mary Guirey. Our room was very cozy with a beautiful view of sea from the window. After changing we started towards the Renard Point which is around 10 mins walk from the hotel. We planned to take some pics of the beauty of Renard Point and the sunset before having our dinner at the only bar and restaurant there named ‘O’Neill’s, The Point’.The hotel was not difficult to find with proper signs given and moreover it as only one B&B located in that area. It had a amazing view surrounding it with vast colourful fields and the Renard Pier. The sea view was spectacular. We checked in and unpacked in our room. We could see the Valentia island from where we sat at the Renard point. It was so spectacular around us that given a chance would like to go back there again. We enjoyed the sunset with lots of photos taken by the professional photographer (who forgets about his pics);) 🙂
Soon after sunset, it started getting really chilly and we decided to go for our dinner.But since it was the only bar available there and it also being a weekend, unfortunately the bar was stuffed and overcrowded with people and also people queuing up outside! Imagine our disappointment when we were told to wait and we would be served when there is space enough. I thought we would have to sleep hungry that night. So we came out spend another hour strolling outside and enjoying the moonlit night.We sat outside awaiting our dinner and it started getting even more chillier and windier.It was 9:00 when we went in again, but realised it was still full as before. We placed our order and then Amit told them we didn’t mind sitting outside for our dinner as we were famished by that time.
Dinner was served soon and it consisted of Deep Fried Squids, a pint of Guinness , a Glass of coke, A dish of Monkfish ‘Point Special’ served on potato with garlic, olive oil and chillies and A dish of Hake ‘Roman Style’ Served with sauce chips and salad. The owner realised that it was getting too cold outside and hence found out a place for us inside and we were really grateful for it. So after our sumptuous dinner we went back again to the Renard Point as Amit wanted to take night shots. While taking pics we saw a most amazing thing… people were releasing ‘Fire Lanterns’ from Valentia Island. These lanterns were looking so beautiful when released into the dark sky that we were mesmerized. Tried taking some pics of them, but were not successful as they didn’t come out as good as seen by naked eyes. Some beautiful things are better seen by naked eye as all moments cannot be captured in camera. It was around 10:30pm and really dark when I started hurrying Amit to get back to the hotel. The eerie darkness around me, the vast empty fields and the sea beyond started scaring me as I realised we had to walk all the way back to hotel in this darkness.
Reached our room at around 11:00 pm and retired for a good nights sleep.