As I was goin' over the Cork and Kerry mountains

A final walk invented over a few pints of the black stuff, over the Kenmare Road towards Killarney, then via a scramble through largely untouched woodland up to Shaking Rock. Back to base in time to admire Kenmare's own ring of standing stones, before a handsome repast cooked up with all of our left-over ingredients - well, we had an Aga at our disposal and we weren't leaving all that cheese behind!

Kenmare standing stones

Sailing by

We'd rambled enough to get properly tired, so today was time for a spot of gentle recovery.  Off we went then to just south of Killarney, to hire rowing boats  and glide around serenely (for those not rowing, at least!).  We enjoyed good views over the water to Ross Castle, and even indulged in some splashy but amicable racing to get around the island in the middle of the lake (or was it a lough, technically?).

Row, row, row!  Come on now!

Then we treated ourselves to a pleasant stroll on the beach at Ross Behy, where the scenery came complete with a wrecked boat which will now, for a short period, also feature a stone circle.

For those of a rallying disposition the drive back to base at Kenmare was one of the highlights of the day - a route over the amazing Gap of Dunloe.

Exeunt pursued by Bear

Castletownbere's seriously impressive graffiti

Over the hills to Castletownbere and on to the smallest Ro-Ro ferry ever seen (capacity four cars), for a walking tour of Bear Island.  

Bear Island Sheep.  Do try to keep up, now.

We heard puffins but, frustratingly, couldn't see them.  The island's human inhabitants ran the most beaten-up and flagrantly unroadworthy collection of cars in western Europe, as well as a somewhat lonely but still friendly pub, and we admired the rolling scenery peppered with Napoleonic-era 'war bits'.

Not-especially-dire straits

Over the hill

We're good extemporisors sometimes. Today's walk was concocted over breakfast, and the swift progression from map to road to greenery took us to the undulations of Lauragh.  

A picnic spot and a half...

Then there was some adrenaline-fuelled driving to get cars back to the pick-up point before tired ramblers got too chilly, and a lovely run over the Healy Pass to Glengariff.  The south of Ireland was really looking it's best today.

The Healy Pass - very wiggly!

It can't rain all of the time

Well it can't be sunny all of the time now, can it?  It's called the Emerald Isle for a reason, and that reason has something in common with the origin of the 'Lake District' too...  So today's fairly brief outing was an improvised and rather wet walk near the road from Kenmare to Killarney, entertainingly devoid of any sort of visible path.  Well, we always find a way through somehow... and we all enjoyed a good pizza at Prego to celebrate.

Hard rock located - we don't know where the café went though

Bumbling about in Kerry

One of the things you notice as soon as you leave dear old Blighty is that we're really lucky with maps and guidebooks over here, and that's not always the case in foreign parts.  Not that Eire really felt that foreign, but the walk planning was certainly proving a challenge on Day One as the planned route turned out to depend upon a footpath which, well, wasn't quite there...  but we did find a nice bit of the Kerry Way in the end, with great coastal views.

Image courtesy of kerryway.kerry-ireland.com

Back to the base in Kenmare afterwards, where there was hot soda bread waiting, and we treated ourselves to lashings of cheese!

Kissing the Blarney stone

Most of us slept well on a smooth crossing as the dolphins splashed around outside (no, really), and we awoke to see the Emerald Isle gliding into view. After rolling off the ferry, we treated ourselves to an early morning walking tour of Cork, which looked good in the early morning sunshine. Some protracted queuing later, we'd climbed the old winding stairs of Blarney Castle and were ready to kiss the Blarney Stone, one by one - it's awfully unhygienic but it does wonders for the gift of the gab, or so they say.

The Blarney Stone's up there somewhere (to be sure, etc.)

The gift of the gab proved handy when we got to Killarney, where the intended hostel turned out to be a bit of disaster; no reserved space for our group, and no parking either. But Helen took the bull by the horns, engaged Tourist Information in a spot of Blarnification and bagged us new digs in a fine independent hostel down the road in Kenmare, which proved an immediate hit. We ended the day with a pint at Florry Batts, which is an odd sort of name for a pub really but we weren't complaining!

To the lighthouse... and beyond!

We all like to be beside the seaside, right?  Well it took our convoy a while to get there, by a range of routes, but before we all knew it we had enjoyed a Swansea ice cream or two and were parked up in the ferry departure terminal, waiting to roll on.  Roll on we did, and headed for the deck to enjoy the magnificent spectacle of the Gower sliding by, complete with the Worm's Head glowing in the sunset.  We all thought that we should go back and walk that one day (and we did, even if it took us a few years).

'Not shouty, this photo - it Mumbles

The Polish crew of the Swansea-Cork ferry ran an interesting onboard restaurant in which we enjoyed overpriced but edible pizza washed down with a 'snipe' of wine each - the entire party were baffled by this terminology, although subsequent exhaustive research suggests that it may have been a thesaurus-related collision with a 'shot'.  To sleep, surprisingly restfully, in our cabins below.