history

It rained last night. Of course it did. BUT. The morning dawned calm, cool and dry. When we retired last night as the daylight faded, dark and ominous clouds lurked on the western horizon where the Atlantic Ocean met the Lough.

This was the morning that greeted us.

The track behind our van down to the sea and the Atlantic on the horizon.

We had a bit of a journey ahead of us to get to Dingle for our next stop. We would complete the navigation of the Beara Peninsular, then we would complete the Ring of Kerry and finally run along the Dingle peninsular to journeys end. As I sit here writing this, little did I know that most of the roads were shall we say a little on the narrow side for a motorhome.

We set off. We stopped for me to take a rest for the locals in vans, trucks and tour buses hurtled past going in the opposite direction and I to this day do not know how my wing mirror came through unscathed. I do have some embarrassing explaining to do to the hire company when I get back as to why the nearside van has a few scratches more than when I picked it up. Caused by the hedgerows that scraped by as I tried to avoid disappearing into them for the above reason! But what an awesome drive.

We actually got stopped in a traffic queue. The small town of Kenmare was pretty but I reckon this is the main hub of activity in these parts.

This is what counts as a traffic jam in these parts.

Just to the north of Kenmare the Ring of Kerry starts when you turn west onto the N70 along the southern side of the Iveragh Peninsular. What a road. Sometimes smooth and flat, sometimes horrible and lumpy but always with spectacular views before you. Except the aforementioned lorries and coaches. Maybe their drivers saw my UK number plates and saw me as tourist fair game. I winced waiting for the disintegrating wing mirror every time one went by. Roads Ireland, can you make your roads a little wider please? Or plant the hedges just a little further back. Thank you.

The island of Skellig Michael looms just offshore. It has a history that warrants a call to it but we don’t have time. We passed through a small seaside town called Waterville. It was very popular with tourists and locals alike. But wait. What is a bronze statue of Charlie Chaplin doing in this remote western outpost? Well he was a regular visitor to the town. Waterville is quite the place it would seem.

One of the must sees for me in this part of Ireland was Valentia Island. I remember well coming across the Atlantic on cargo ships heading for the western approaches to the English Channel, picking up radio messages, weather forecasts and safety transmissions from Valentia radio situated on the island. Here is their story. On 13 July 1866, SS Great Eastern steamed westward from Valentia Island laying telegraph cable behind her. The successful landing at Heart’s Content, Newfoundland on 27 July, established the first telegraph link between Europe and North America.

The small town of Portmagee lies on the south side of the bridge that links the island to the mainland and here we took a break to walk the dog, walk ourselves and have lunch. Its a delightful little place if ever you visit this way with its brightly painted houses and shops.

The road now turns east along the Northern part of the peninsular. It undulates following the terrain offering more staggering views across to the Dingle peninsular. I can clearly see the entrance to Dingle harbour away in the distance. I anchored there only last year. We still had over 70 miles to go.

After what seemed like an age we arrived in the bustling town of Dingle. This was clearly a must see place. There were at least 6 large tour coaches in the car park, at least 50 cars parked up and quite a throng moving about taking photos. Us included. We had an Ice cream. Of course Brits do when the temperature finally reaches double figures.

The sky closed in. Lest it rained, again, we hot footed it to our camp for the night at the Oratory House Campsite a few miles north of Dingle town. Said to be Europes most westerly campsite it just had to be visited.

Tomorrow we cross the River Shannon estuary and visit the Cliifs of Moher..

I leave you with a little map of our route so far after one week on the road.