We wandered a little before getting back on the bus. It was really more of a pit stop to give us a chance to get off the bus, stretch our legs, and visit a convenience store (if we wanted--which we did. Sodas are a necessity for any Carrie & Katherine trip). Of course it also had pretty scenery.
From there we drove to our real destination, Garinish Island. On the ferry ride over, we saw seals (and on the way back too, actually) and an eagle!
This island in Bantry bay is beautiful and full of all different types of trees and flowers. We had a lovely couple of hours roaming around
(and even found a tower to climb) before it was time to go.
The sun came out and made for some pretty blue skies for some of the pictures of the gardens and the bay and surrounding hills.
We next headed to the nearby town of Glengarriff for lunch in a pub that the tour director reserved for us. We didn't have to stay, but everyone did. The town itself was very small, so we really just ate and left.
Our last stop of the day was a drive through the Ring of Kerry which is gorgeous landscapes with rolling hills and lakes and soft green grasses (and sheep).
It was a pretty early arrival at 3:20 or so, and we were our own for the rest of the day. After getting or bags and a brief rest, we took a LONG walk to Muckross Abbey (it took 1 hour each way). We were on walking and bike trails along the road for a large part of the walk,
but then we turned into Killarney National Park, which was lovely with the lakes.
The Abbey is a ruin of an old friary founded in 1448 and burned by Cromwell in 1652. The ruins were open and we could even climb up in it. The Abbey is now used as a graveyard.
There is a giant yew in the center of the cloister.
We went back to the hotel to rest our feet
before heading back out to a restaurant (kind of a modern irish restaurant) where I got a cottage pie (my first of the trip).
Our legs and feet are hurting a bit after today's walk, but, luckily, we have a couple of longer drives tomorrow.
• Yay! This was the day that the sun finally came out for more than five minutes!
ReplyDelete• Photo No. 6 is super-pretty. I don't have a similar photo and I'm almost 100% sure it's because I chose to be lazy and sit on a bench while you investigated this little church, haha. It was Day 10. You know I get church-ed out by this point.
• "Sodas are a necessity for any Carrie and Katherine trip." Soda forever!
• SEALSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3 <3 <3 They were so cute they distracted me from almost barfing on that tiny enclosed boat!
• I love Photo Nos. 23-25 but all of these are really nice.
• Awwwww, Photo No. 34!! :-D. How lovely and picturesque! Who was your amazing photographer??! This should also go on the wall!
• The fish and chips at that restaurant were AMAZING and I don't even really like fish and chips all that much. Probably the best I've ever had.
• Ugh, the panorama in Photo No. 47 is so niceeeee. This was a super picturesque day in general.
• LOL. Such a long, long walk. Completely ironic that it was all my fault, given the typical difference in our respective levels of laziness.
• Photo No. 53: the transportation that we could have taken, haha.
• And Photo No. 54: documenting the 4.4 km that we walked from Killarney to Muckross Abbey, and the 4.4 km that we were about to walk back from Muckross Abbey to Killarney. So fun!
• No photo evidence of that random hotel on the walk back where we stopped to pee because I was dying? And I was super paranoid that we'd get yelled for peeing there because we weren't hotel guests? Such exciting travel stories!
• That was a really fun pub. I loved the music. And we definitely earned those giant desserts today, LOL.