Day 5 - Scenic Irish Coast (and really narrow roads)

 Good evening all.

Thought I would start today with 2 pictures of the kind of roads we have been driving on over here.

We took these two pictures so you could see how narrow a lot of the roads we have been driving on are.  They are not all this narrow.  Most at least can pass 2 cars without one of them stopping.  But we spent 1.5 hours on this road and another just like it today.

These pictures are of a 2 way road with a 80 kilometer per hour (50 mph) speed limit.  Its nuts.

That's me in our tiny little, standard shift, walnut sized, rental car.

I had Anita jump out and grab a picture for scale.

 

And this is the view thru windshield.

Luckily these roads are not to busy.  But you meet a car every couple of minutes - and it is invariably at a sharp, blind turn.

Add the to the driving on the left side and constant shifting with the LEFT hand, and I can tell you why there are so many pubs around.

Fun Fun Fun.

Today consisted of driving around what is called the Ring of Kerry, or the Wild Atlantic Highway.  This is just a scenic drive through  Peninsula mostly lying in County Kerry.  It goes over really high hills (or small mountains if you'd rather) down steep winding grades over very narrow roads to the shore of the bays off the Atlantic Ocean.  Then along the shore for while, then back over some more small mountains on steep, winding, very narrow roads to a another part of the Irish Atlantic Coast. Then along....

Well you get the picture.  It was some astonishingly beautiful countryside.  At least that is what Anita told me.  I was busy trying to navigate the road and miss all the huge tour busses, some of them double-deckers, carry tourists wanting to see what all the brochures in the stores, shops and pubs, call "Classic, Scenic Irish Coast Line.  It was totally insane.  You drive along a road barely big enough for 2 of these tiny little cars they drive over here to pass - every minute scared to death that a tour bus is coming around that next blind curve.  And these tour busses know they could just run you right over without the guests even knowing it happened.  Just another bump in the road.  So you need to get our of their way.

When you are done with a 2 hour drive like that, it takes your knuckles some time to get color back in them and you too relax.  I pub under B&B at the end of the trip is very helpful.

I will say that the several stops we made at the vista pull offs (the ones too small for the busses) had some really amazing scenery along the shore and up in the mountains both.

Pictures just do not do the landscape justice. We tried to get some good ones and todays pictures can be viewed here:

Day 5 Ring of Kerry Pics

By the way,  When we left Glengarriff this morning we drove back by the harbor since the tide was in and Anita got see the boats floating that were on their sides yesterday when we were there.  So I got another at-a-boy.  Unfortunately I could not get that 3rd at-a-boy.  No had parked their car on the ramp at low tide and left it there.  😁  

We pulled in to a Pub and B&B overlooking the Atlantic Bay called Caitlan's.  Nice little place with nothing else near it.  Just along the Wild Atlantic Highway - 10 miles in either direction from the next town.

Tomorrow we will finish the Ring of Kerry with what I am told by the locals here at Caitlan's Pub adds two more interesting elements to the adventure of driving the Wild Atlantic Highway through the Ring of Kerry.  All those other things I mentioned about the roads, now add sheep and cattle randomly appearing in the middle of road and the really narrow road hanging precariously at the edge of shear cliffs, hundreds of feet high.

Sounds like fun - the cliffs are going to be on Anita's side of car the whole time.  I will let you know how that goes. (Hopefully)

Night all.

Anita and Jim