Wild Atlantic Way (from Kinsale to Killarney)

The past four nights (not fortnight) have been spent along the southern section of the Wild Atlantic Way, from Kinsale to Ballydehob (which we affectionately call Ballydeboop), all the way out to Mizen Head (the most southwesterly point of Ireland), and now Killarney. It's a raw landscape with curvey roads and speed limits that are nonsensical. Perhaps Dale Earnhardt Jr could achieve the suggested speeds of 100km/hr around hair pin turns and roads wide enough for two cars if you bring in your mirrors.

We've been told that it's rainy and cold here and your days are governed by the weather. Yep, that's true.

Our first full day in Kinsale was an absolutely perfect 70 degrees and not a cloud in sight. We took the opportunity to grab a little beach time. One of the great advantages of a year long trip is finding yourselves owning large swaths of sand all by your lonesome.

Not sure what creature is doing this, but these little mounds of sand get pooped up from below. Really weird.

Bryce did some hillbilly hand fishing and caught a baby mackerel.

Official Long Family world trip logo.

In the afternoon we toured the Charles Fort to learn about the many inhumane ways that a country can treat their indentured soldiers. Good times. We also learned of the resident ghost, the White Lady, that haunts the fort. It's your typical love story turned tragic, resulting in the White Lady launching herself off the edge of the fort in to a bank of jagged rocks. We kept our eyes open in hopes of catching a glimpse of her, but to no avail.

Apparently people have seen weird things in their pictures...

To further the ghost theme, after the sun went down, Autumn, Nicole, and I joined the famed Ghost Tour around Kinsale. But this was no ordinary tour, it was a comedy duo out to blend history with antics. Highly recommended if you ever find yourself in Kinsale.

One of the Dynamic Duo

This picture captures a lot of what makes Kinsale so pretty. Rock walls with vertical rocks, quilted landscape of different crops, rolling hills, and fog.

If day two was defined by perfect weather, day three was defined by rain - all day and night*. Fortunately it was a road trip day, so it didn't completely impact our day. But the two hours we intended to spend on Long Beach was thwarted by horizontal rain. Given the rain, it afforded a moment to chill in Clonakilty for window shopping, lunch and a haircut. Now that was an experience... Imagine getting a haircut from Borat - Total nonsensical rambling in barely intelligible English, interspersed with "iza very nize". Then he pulled out a long q-tip, set it aflame, and tossed fire in my ears.

Clonakilty

Autumn particularly liked how this row of homes were the Hogwarts House colors.

What you do when it's raining and no internet...

Day three was defined by fog. The highlight of any southern Ireland road trip is to visit Mizen Head - to walk across a cool foot bridge to a lighthouse overlooking rocky cliffs and endless ocean. That was our plan, this was our view...

Stunning... Nay, Spectacular... Nay, Breathtaking view of Mizen Head. At least we could hear the ocean down there.

Determined to visit something coastal, we backtracked to The Beacon in the village of Baltimore. Fortunately the thick fog gave way to occasional filtered sun rays.

We braved the fog, and this amazing pontoon bridge, to spend an hour on a secluded beach near Mizen Head.

Ultimate challenge, Autumn is somewhere standing along that rock wall.

We pulled in to the Gleann Fia Bed and Breakfast here in Killarney yesterday. I have been looking forward to this stay as the owners are the parents of one of our Irishmen at Dome. As expected, they are the most lovely people, and I'm particularly enjoying the tall tales of the "real" Niall as a young lad**.

Quite by random luck***, we were able to sign up for a falcon walk here in Killarney. For an hour, we got to walk with a trained Harris Hawk and have it land on our arms. These birds of prey are used to hunt small game to feed their masters. Fascinating. If that wasn't cool enough, the end of the walk treated us to holding five different owls - real, live owls. I had the Great Horned owl, Nicole had the Snowy Owl (Gandolf), Autumn had the Barn owl (Mr Daisy), Zane the Tawny, and Bryce the cutest little Scop owl.

https://youtu.be/GRakfJEnQfM


A couple observations...
It's a shame that many of the roads we traveled were lined by 6ft tall hedges on both sides. Firstly it adds to the stress of driving on the wrong side of the road, but moreover, it obscures the beautiful landscape that is Ireland. I think if I was the Minister of Tourism, I would commission a fleet of industrial hedge trimmers and create the world's largest pile of clippings.

It's true, the Irish have the gift of gab. Even in a 911 memorial (yeah, right next to our place in Kinsale, was a lovely memorial to the fallen FDNY), I struck up a 10 minute conversation with a nice fella that could have gone all afternoon. And, of course, Niall's parents, Conor and Bridgett, could talk for days on end without a moment's pause.

Footnotes
* I was subjected to a literal version of Chinese Water Torture. At some point during a night storm, I had the most vivid dream that water was dripping on my head. A dream, it was not. Fortunately it was not a constant stream, so we just moved the bed, and threw a towel on the floor.

** Niall, if you're reading this, for Pete's sake, call your mom from a nice quiet spot and not while eating a sandwich. Also, tell her about your work and what's going well and not well....

*** I don't really believe in true luck, but rather, one makes their own luck. In this case, a simple five minute conversation with someone before the ghost tour turned in to a memory of a lifetime.