Day 13 Dingle

Well today went from mauzy to pouring rain and back again, a couple of times! It was a perfect day to prove if you didn't venture out becasue it was raining, you sure would miss a lot! We decided to try driving the Slea Head Loop Trail on The Wild Atlantic Way, since hiking didn't seem advisable.

We started with a hearty breakfast at our B&B and then started the loop that was literally outside our door. Though we suspected there wouldn't be much scenery nor exploring, we hoped that driving along the loop trail with our Rick Steves travel guide would fill our morning. The peninsula is home to 50,000 sheep, so I thought I would be entertained enough. Little did we realize!

Traveling along the fuchsia lined roadways bursting with tropical colour is lovely. When we spotted a sandy beach in the town of Ventry we decided to head off the road to check it out. At this point there was not much more than a thick mist so we took our chances with a walk on the beach. We explored tidal pools, enjoyed the beautiful scenery and occassionally walked along and chatted with locals. We rejoiced in out decision to not be deterred by the weather!





Finally leaving the beach we only made it 1.9km down the road before our next stop. We saw an intersection that claimed the three Gs - God (a church), groceries and Guinness! Stopping just to have a look we learned that the pub was Paddy O'Shea's and there was a statue to his memory out front. He was apparently a household name in Ireland as a football star. Following a successful career, he opened a pub. As we wandered outside, Margaret wandered inside to have a look and called us in to see what she found. The pub was a hommage to Paidi with his football shoes hanging from the ceiling and pictures of him with everyone from the PM to Dolly Parton! A man sitting at the bar started a conversation and before long he had called Mick Galwey to come over to the pub to meet us. Now the name didn't mean much to me but Margaret was excited. He too is a local sports hero in both rugby and Gaelic football and Margaret had a picture taken to send off to her brothers. They seemed as taken with us as we were with them - that's Ireland for you. And since they wouldn't take no for an answer, I enjoyed my first Guinness that they insisted in treating me to ... AT 11:00 in the morning! That's Ireland for you!!

Not allowed to touch it until it's properly settled!

Getting out of there before I was poured a second, we continued on down the road to a pull-off and travelled down a slipway to the ocean. The rain was pretty steady by this time but not to be deterred we wandered (carefully!) along the cliffs to the ocean.




This is the boat and Zodiac that brings visitors to Great Blasket on good weather days. They aren't running today since they described getting onto the island as "jumping off a trampoline onto a skating rink" in weather like this! Pass!


10 sections of slipway, each one steeper than the last!! Quite the hike.

We were well and truly drenched by the time we finished exploring so is was time to go indoors and dry out. We were so thankful for the rain because we might not have gone indoors in better weather. It would have been a terrible shame if we missed Great Blasket Centre, a museum dedicated to life on this isolated island off Ireland's west coast. The island was inhabitated until 1954 when last family left. Their language, culture and way of life is captured here. The museum is exceptionally well done and although we can't see across to the islands because of the thick fog, the day was very informative, poignant, and provided a facinating look into a lost way of life.
Cool display with fishermen crafted from wire mesh. The detail was incredible from their shoelaces to their facial expressions.
This should have provided a view of Great Blasket.
A display board showed how the slip we had hiked earlier had been used to bring sheep off Blasket to market.

Wandering back along the Wild Atlantic Way we made several other picture stops from Ballyferriter back to Dingle. A warm bowl of Guinness stew was just the thing to chase the chill away and end another spectacular day.

The sides of the road are a riot of colourful flowers.


The beehive huts were everywhere. Pre-dating the pyramids!!


Happy to pose, one of the 50,000 sheep on this little peninsula!
Guinness stew at Murphy's Pub.

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