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irescot · 7 years ago

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Ireland Tour - Day 3 (9/6)

We stayed at the Lansdowne Arms Hotel in Kenmare, a pretty little town with a couple of streets that were chock full of restaurants, pubs, and a million shops of every description.

We had breakfast at the hotel and there were two servers, a younger one whose name I didn't get and an older one called Mary that was delightful and friendly and helpful. After breakfast we piled into the van, and next thing we know, Mary come running over and gets in the bus, and starts singing Rose of Tralee in a good enough voice and animated gestures. She clearly was having a ball singing. We gave her a big hand and she left. Another Jason arranged surprised. We were going to really miss this guy.

Jason told us that Rose of Tralee really referred to a beauty competition that is held each year in Tralee. Any female of Irish ancestry is permitted to participate, regardless of where she lives in the world. This year's competition was won by an Irish-American from Chicago.

Jason had prepared a map of Scotland where he outlined the route we were going to follow and the stops, and I finally realized that I had not taken a picture of it for reference, so I asked him to pass it back and before I got it, everybody else realized they also wanted to take a picture of it. This morning we were going to a Sheep Dog demonstration at a local farm. Over our first dinner, Carol had told some people all about the one we saw in Scotland. We were curious whether there would be any differences. The farm was called Kissane Sheep Farm in Moll's Gap, Kenmare, and there's lots of pictures of what the farm looked like. What you don't get from them is how big the farm was. They guy had 1700 baby lambs this year, and has another 2000. So he really needs the sheepdogs. He uses border collies like the other guy (BTW, I found out they are called border collies because they come from The Borders, an area on the border between Wales and England).

He doesn't use whistling like the other guy, but a lot of spoken commands. He made them bring the flock to him (a small part of his flock) and then put them back in a specific place, made them bring them to a small corral and be penned, and a couple of other maneuvers. I didn't think it was an interesting demo like the other one, but this guy told us more about the economics of a sheep farm, and it's very hard to make a living. He says he couldn't keep going if he hadn't diversified wherever possible, including doing this stuff for tourist buses (it was said very matter of fact, no bitterness), and he also has joint ventures with people who produce products for which he can provide source materials, like hand cream with sheep lanolin, which both Sharon and I bought. He says he got $1 pound per kilo of wool this year. The market is depressed at this point so he is storing his wool, hoping it will come back.

Well intentioned people keep telling them to get Marino sheep, since the wool is so sought after, but they are not native to Ireland and they would not do well in Ireland's weather. So he just keeps going finding ways to survive. It was a sad story, especially when we found out he is something like 6th generation sheep farmer.

We were going to Killarney National Forest today for a jaunty ride. A jaunty is just a horse-drawn cart that has seats along the sides that face each other, with a canopy to keep out the worst of the rain should it come. They keep blankets in the jaunties for days like today, when it was really cold. The jaunty season I believe will be coming to an end soon.

But before that, we went back on the Ring of Kerry and stopped at the Ladies' View lookout, named after Queen Victoria's ladies-in-waiting who stopped there and were entranced by the view. Took pictures, but you knew that, didn't you?

A little further on there was a waterfall just a short 5-10 minute walk up a somewhat steep grade road. I think that's where there was a Leprechaun crossing sign was, but I noticed it too late, after we passed it. Carol, Sharon and I stayed in the van, and instead took a comfort stop and took pictures at the level we were, where the water from the waterfall flowed.

Then we entered the Killarney National Forest. Most of us on the coach had given Jason a gratuity earlier, now others did it too. He gave each of us a big hug (or manly handshake for the guys) and that was that. Sniff.

We went to the jaunty area and since we had 13 it took three jaunties, one with room for 5 and two with 4. Since they all looked pretty much the same, I wondered how they handled 5, and it was by putting the 5th person up front with the driver. As we went around the park (it was supposed to be an hour, but it was more like half an hour) with Sally pulling our particular jaunty, the driver (sorry, I remember the horse's name, but not the driver) would activate (he was very robotic) and deliver a factual piece in a totally affectless voice. On the left, those black cows are Kerry cows. I had a little bit of trouble understanding all he said, but it seems to have been mostly me. We saw Muckross House (very grand and beautiful), a place where the jaunty ride would end. Then a tree alley which was Friar's Walk. Then we stopped at the Muckross Friary, which was, naturally, in ruins. I took a millions pictures. This stop is what made them claim it was an hour ride.

Pretty place architecturally. In the middle of the cloister walk, there was a giant tree. It turned out to be a yew, a tree we had been told was poisonous. It apparently produces little red berries whose pit is very poisonous, although the flesh of the berry is just fine. Yew was also used to make the longbows which were used which devastating effect in olden wars.

Stupid me also walked up (and later down) a spiral staircase, but at least I got some interesting pictures.

We got back to the jaunty before the 4th person, and so the jaunty driver took pictures of the three of us in the back of the jaunty, and a picture of the whole thing this time including Sally.

Took pictures showing the other jaunties ahead of us, and later showed Captain, the horse pulling a jaunty with other people from our party, riding very close to us. We were able to reach out an pat his head without having to move much. More Kerry cows, views, trees; my usual suspects.

We were deposited at Muckross House Conservatory (which would be Conservancy for us) where we had some lunch after we wandered around lost looking for the restaurant. We passed a wooden sculpture that kinda looked like a heart. Then we went looking for Henry our new driver. For some reason most of us decided to just mill around, but Carol decided to go out looking for him and as a reward, she found him and beckoned to us to come join her and Henry.

We said hello and he made sure we knew the safety rules (again) and then we went off to the Dingle Peninsula. After the Beare Peninsula we had been on the Kerry Peninsula. Each of them is further north, with Dingle being the northernmost.

Henry was also very nice, but we didn't warm up to him the same way; it may just be a question of time, of which we have a dwindling amount. But he certainly knew his stuff and told it well. We stopped at Inch Beach, which is apparently a famous surfer beach, although today was windy, cold and inhospitable looking.

Then he started telling us about a guy called Tom Crean, a British Navy officer who was in the right place at the right time and got picked to go on Scott's expedition to the Antarctic in the early 1910's. Scott came in second to Roald Amundsen, but that was just sort of the middle of the story. There was a PBS documentary that I remember watching which told the story and it was a fascinating one. Tom Crean was a real hero of that expedition who committed various acts of bravery and was responsible for rescuing a lot of people.

He was on all three British polar expeditions, his last one the infamous Shackleford expedition. They survived for month trapped on the ice floes after their ship was crushed and journeyed with Shackleford and four others in a 21-foot lifeboat 800 miles across the South Atlantic armed with only a sextant. When they reached South Georgia he had to scale the uncharted glaciers to reach a settlement on the other side of the island, to reach help for the colleagues left behind. He received the "Albert Medal" for bravery.

Much later he opened a pub called the South Pole Inn in Annascaul, next to the river of the same name, and his home town, and ran it with his wife until his death in 1938, at age 61, of a burst appendix.

So that's where Henry was taking us, to Annascaul to see the South Pole Inn and go inside and see the many old pictures and mementos. Took very few pictures.

Finally we drove on to the town of Dingle on the Dingle Peninsula to our next overnight stop, the Dingle Bay Hotel, where we are staying two nights. Yay!

One thing we hadn't done yet is listen to some traditional Irish music. Dingle is supposed to be a good place for it. So after we checked in, we decided to make a reservation with the hotel for dinner and music. Dinner at 8 and the music starting at 8:45.

We got settled in, put my feet up for an hour or so and then it was time to go to the restaurant. We were seated at a table in a special raised section by the window and didn't think anything of it, but at around 8:30 three musicians walked in and started setting up and warming up and we realized that we were going to be two tables away from the musicians. Good and bad. Good because easy to listen to, bad in case we didn't want to stay. Turned out good. The food was good and the traditional Irish music was good. (The Drambuie was also good.)

Then it got to be near 10 and Carol slipped away. Around 10:15 we also got up and went to our rooms and went to sleep.

And that was the end of Day 3 (9/6) of the Ireland Tour.

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