County Kerry Days Three and Four
Day Three in Kerry Sat Sept 9
The great weather appeared to be holding we so decided to make this our Ring of Kerry day. We had not done the Ring since our trip in 2009 and I had several places to photograph at the western tip of the Iveragh Peninsula. Staying in Kenmare allowed us to head straight down the peninsula along Kenmare Bay. Doing the Ring this way (clockwise) allows us to avoid the big tour busses, who usually do it the other way. Our first objective was Derrynane Abbey It could be a great sunrise shot but since I’ve despaired of getting great sunrises we departed at a civilized hour. I thought the monastery was worthwhile. It sits on what was at one time a high tide island but it now appears that you can walk to it most of the time.
We then headed across the tip of the peninsula looking for Ballinskelligs which has an abbey and a castle. This one was founded by the monks who had scratched out a living on Skellig Michael for about 600 years and finally gave it up and came back to the mainland.
Above is Hannah, building her own castle.
Working our way further across the tip of the peninsula we had a bowl of chowder in Portmagee and then went over to the Kerry Cliffs. This was to be my sunset shot so we just wanted to look over the set up. But as we pulled into the parking lot we could see fog climbing up the cliffs. We asked some of the people coming down about the view and they said it was still pretty impressive so we decided to go for it. They were right. It was indeed impressive.
We were seeing in the hour or so we were there that the fog was thickening. This would be a problem for my sunset. What to do?
There was another castle to check out so we went off to look for it, keeping an eye on the coast. But we found the castle closed and inaccessible to the public. We were stymied again.
Above is Ballycarberry Castle, the best one we'd seen all day but we couldn't get near it. I got this picture with my 500mm lens.
I decided at this point to drive back to Derrynane Abbey and maybe get a decent sunset shot there. But as we crossed the tip of the peninsula we could see the fog engulfing the entire coast and the Bay of Kenmare. The weather gods had turned against us.
We wound up back in Kenmare early enough to go to Mass at Holy Cross in Kenmare.
Day Four in Kerry Sun Sep 10
The day started pretty grey and with the fog chasing us home the day before we thought it best to check out some spots in Killarney National Park - a little closer to home. First stop was Torc waterfall. The flow was a little light but still pretty good.
Muckross Abbey was next . Yes another abbey. This one has been kept in much better repair than any of the others we had visited. In fact, this might be the only one we’ve visited that you could actually enter and climb to the top floor. And like Glendalough the area around it has been preserved as a national park. If you want to see what a medieval monastery really looked like this is about as good as you will find.
The young lady below was there making a video with her friend. Running through the graveyard in a white dress appeared to be the theme.
We also had jaunting cars running all over so they made good pictures.
By late afternoon the weather had started moving in again, dampening any hopes for an epic sunset so we went back to Ross Castle to try for a moody cloudy picture. And more jaunting cars.
Heading back to Kenmare the clouds were just about to close up over Moll’s Gap.
