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Day 4
Today was the last day in Ireland. We woke up in the morning , took bath and got ready early enough for the breakfast.Breakfast was served at 8:00am and we had ordered for 2 Irish breakfast. This time the breakfast was best out of all 3 days as was the hotel. It consisted of milk, cereals, toast with butter and jam, juices, poached eggs, sausages, ham, bacon and black and white Irish meat puddings. It was heavy and very tasty. After the meal we decided to venture outside our hotel to see around as our bus back from Cahersiveen to Killarney was at 12:00pm so we had ample time.The beauty outside was spectacular. Bright and sunny, with birds chirping and butterflies flying around us, the colours of nature was truly amazing. We tried capturing them in a few pics. It made me wonder whether it was the same area where we had faced the ghastly gale last night or was it just a bad nightmare?
We could see black berry bushes on both sides of the road. we also tasted a few of those wild blackberries and found them to be extremely delicious.These berries would leave a tinge of purple or red colour on our hands if they burst before eating them.After our walking and exploring around, we came back, checked out from the hotel and as we had requested for a taxi for a drop till Cahersiveen, the owner again himself dropped us till the town with a fare of 20 euros.
We visited the ‘Daniel o’Connell ‘ memorial church in Cahersiveen town centre finally before bidding a goodbye to the town and boarding the bus to Killarney. After an hour and half of uneventful journey we were back at Killarney town centre once again by 1:30 pm. We had lots of time in our hand before taking the bus back from Killarney to Cork. So we decided to see the other attractions of Killarney town. We wanted to visit the ‘Torc waterfall ‘and the ‘Muckross house’.
Having heard about and seen the jaunty cars we thought of trying out them for our trip to these two places. but when we enquired about the rates they said 80-100 euros for both! We were not ready to pay so much instead we took a taxi again from Denis tours for visiting the two places. The taxi was much cheaper option costing 30 euros only.
‘Muckross House’ is a mansion designed by the Scottish architect, William Burn, built in 1843 for Henry Arthur Herbert and his wife, the watercolourist Mary Balfour Herbert. With sixty-five rooms, it was built in the Tudor style. Extensive improvements were undertaken in the 1850s in preparation for the visit of Queen Victoria in 1861. It is said that these improvements for the Queen’s visit were a contributory factor in the financial difficulties suffered by the Herbert family which resulted in the sale of the estate. In 1899 it was bought by Arthur Guinness, 1st Baron Ardilaun who wanted to preserve the dramatic landscape.It was bought by a wealthy Californian mining magnate William Bowers Bourn, as a wedding gift for his daughter Maud and her husband Arthur Rose Vincent.Killarney National Park was formed principally from a donation of Muckross Estate, which was presented to the State in 1932 by Senator Arthur Vincent and his parents-in-law Mr. and Mrs. William Bowers Bourn, in memory of Senator Vincent’s late wife, Maud. The park was substantially expanded by acquisition of land from the former Earl of Kenmare’s estate.The house, gardens and traditional farms are all free and open to the public.
Our first stop was at the ‘Torc waterfall’. It was a nice 5 min walk to view it. Lots of snaps were taken there and then I decided to go for fun time and climbed down beside the waterfall into boulders. He walked amongst the boulders and for about 10 mins and then we returned back to the taxi for ‘Muckross House’.
