Ireland - Part II — RachiePie

We started our fifth day exploring Killarney National Park, the first national park in Ireland. It covers almost 25,000 acres and is home to mountains, lakes, woodland and waterfalls.

Our morning began with a rainy hike through the Gap of Dunloe. The Gap of Dunloe was created by a glacier breach over 25,000 years ago that caused a narrow mountain pass to separate the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks mountain range in the west from the Purple Mountain range in the east. Although it was a beautiful hike, it was challenging to navigate all the sheep poop, mud and rocks!

The next stop on our list was Ross Castle. This castle dates to the 15 century and was originally the residence of the O’Donoghue family.

We also drove by the Muckross House, which was built over a period of years from 1839 to 1843 and contains over 65 rooms! During the 1850’s, the family carried out more work on the mansion in anticipation of a visit from Queen Victoria which resulted in financial difficulties and ultimately the sale of the estate.

From the castle, there is a short hike through the woodlands to nearby Torc Waterfall.

Our last stop of the day was to Ladies Viewpoint, one of the most famous overlooks in the park. It is also said to be one of Queen Victoria’s favorite spots when she visited!

We both enjoyed this region of Ireland and while driving through and we made multiple stops along the side of the rood to admire the view and take pictures.

I think my favorite region we explored in Ireland was the Dingle Peninsula which followed the Slea Head Drive. The route follows a circular drive and starts and ends in the town of Dingle. It takes about 2-3 hours depending on how long you stop for at each point along the way. The road at times was VERY narrow and there was a lot of white-knuckle driving (and passenger riding)! It was also one of the least touristy areas we visited due to larger buses not being able to drive through such narrow roads.

We also spent some time in the town of Dingle where we grabbed a cup of coffee at Bean in Dingle (I purchased a bag of coffee beans to take home as a souvenir) before starting the drive. And we ended back in Dingle for lunch with maybe the best fish tacos I’ve ever had at The Fish Box.

The following morning, we drove three hours from our hotel to the Cliffs of Moher. The cliffs are over 700-feet high and one of the most popular tourist attractions in Ireland. As most of the roads in Ireland are SUPER narrow, tour buses are not able to navigate to some of the more remote areas in Ireland and the majority of places we visited were pretty quite. This quickly changed once we arrived at The Cliffs of Moher which was incredibly busy and packed with tourists. Also, most of the trail along the cliffs was closed due to two people falling in the pervious couple of weeks. Even with the packed crowds, it was impossible not enjoy the jaw-dropping scenery and we even somehow managed another perfectly sunny day! Ireland was really showing off for us!

After walking along the cliffs, we stopped for lunch in the nearby town of Doolin, at The Ivy Cottage, before heading to our hotel for the evening.

For our final full day in Ireland, we drove to Burren National Park, which draws its name from the Irish boíreann, or rocky place. Despite the name, Burren National Park, is home to over 70% of Ireland’s flower species!

Our first stop of the morning was to the Poulnabrone Dolmen (also known as Portal Tomb). Built more than 5,000 years ago, it is one of Ireland’s most photographed ancient monuments.

We also made a stop at The Burren Perfumery. Founded 35 years ago, the shop makes it’s own perfumes, soaps and lotions. It’s a beautiful shop and I purchased a couple of soaps to take home.

Our final hike of our trip was to see the Mullaghmore dome. The Mullaghmore is a karst dome where layers of seabed formed 325 million years ago have been pushed skywards, twisting and curling as they’ve done so, resulting in what looks like a giant grey layer-cake. We were unable to do the full loop as we wanted to make our way back to Dublin, but we did walk down where we could see this amazing formation.

Ireland was every bit as magical, mystical and beautiful as I thought it would be. I still can’t believe we lucked out with such sunny and dry weather for the majority of the our trip!

I will say once we completed our road trip, we both mentioned how exhausting it was to spend each night in a different hotel. We would never have been able to see as much as we did, had we not done that, so neither of us regret it one bit, but we both felt all the moving around at the end! Guess that’s just getting older for you!