Travels with Uncle Charlie: Ireland day 7

This morning we awoke in Killarney National Park, the first national park established in Ireland. Can you name the first truly national park to be established in the world? Here’s a hint: the name begins with the letter Y. If you don’t get it with that information, you’d better not run into Teddy Roosevelt in the hereafter.

Containing over 25,000 acres, this park contains the largest covering of native forest in the country and the only native red deer herd. This morning a group of the deer paraded past our window during breakfast at the B & B. The park was designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1981, and for good cause. Kept relatively warm by the waters of the Gulf Stream, it is near the westernmost point in Ireland. They say the average temperature here in February is around 43º F. But the average during our visit in April is about the same as what they claim for February. Snow can be seen atop a not-so-tall mountain outside our bedroom window. But we actually saw sunshine and blue sky today, so Tricia hurried outside to take a picture.

Friar's Glen Country House during a sunny moment

Heading south, we stopped to take a look at Torc (“tahrk”) Waterfall and begin a 200-km trek around one of the more popular tourist roads in the southwestern part of Ireland.

Torc Waterfall in Killarney National Park

An Mhór Chuaird, better as the Ring of Kerry, is so popular, in fact, that the big tour buses all run in a counterclockwise route so they won’t have to pass each other in opposite directions on the miniature roadway that makes driving here such an adventure. Several years ago a GPS glitch sent some of the buses on a clockwise route, resulting in one of the greatest traffic jams of the 21st century. Fortunately today, we had a map and GPS, so we took the clockwise route. That made it certain that we would compete for the road-path with every single tour bus on the route, except those that were parked to disgorge their passengers, ooing and aahing at all the magnificent coastal sites and taking up all the prime photo-taking spots. Also fortunately, this is April, and most of the tourists are still at home, packing their umbrellas for their upcoming vacations.

Mountainside on the Ring of Kerry

One of Europe's most beautiful beaches, Waterville, Ireland

The area chamber of commerce proudly proclaims that some of Europe’s finest beaches can be found here, with all the facilities for a great tourist holiday. The chamber omits any reference to the fact that a normal human can survive for a little more than 8 minutes before freezing to death in the water adjoining the beaches—or to the fact that its promotional photos never show anyone actually in the water. Or on the beaches, for that matter. Perhaps the chamber members have never visited St. Tropez, the Italian Riviera, Ibiza, Majorca, the Greek islands, Croatia, Portugal, or the Canary Islands. Perhaps the members do not recognize those places as being located in Europe. One must, of course, sometimes turn a blind eye to minor, disputable matters of opinion when one is promoting one’s local economy.

In any event, we have now left the historic and beautiful part of Ireland and are traveling the merely beautiful. We did depart from the Ring of Kerry route for an hour or so to travel the very rural Skellig Ring road to the west. The people in this area all speak the old Irish language, and the English has been dropped from the road signs. It is a stunningly beautiful area, even on a mostly cloudy and rainy day. We leave you with a few photos, compliments of Tricia, before turning in for the night.