Day Eight – Killarney

Rain

Our hostess Edel’s version of full Irish breakfast added homemade German marmalade and subtracted the pudding. Fine with me. Some of us thought the marmalade was too bitter, I think it was the same person that was fine with oversweet American food.

Killarney in the Rain

Hoping the rain would blow over , we headed over the mountains to Killarney National Park. You could tell that it would be incredibly beautiful with a bit of sun. There wasn’t any.

We stopped to do a loop hike to see Torc Falls and some of the surrounding area. Nice hike. In the rain. At least the falls were in full flow. This area is actually very similar to the Smoky Mountains.
Had a nice lunch from supplies we picked up in Kenmare this morning. Fresh baked brown bread for me, White bread for Aaron, cheeses, hummous , pesto and olives.

About this time Mildred broke. Mildred is the name we had given to our SatNav with the British (not Irish) accent. Fortunately, we were now in the town of Killarney and there was a Hertz office at the airport. After a 30 or 40 minute drive out to the airport and back we were able to fire up our new girl Fiona, who was at least as good as Mildred at keeping us on the right road. It was a high risk move, leaving the girls to shop in town while we went for a SatNav replacement, but I guess we are still under our credit card limits.
On the way back, we stopped at Ross Castle which was a pretty cool place, with the usual ambivalence of the Irish. They love the history but hate the Anglo-Norman domination that came with it.
It was a long day of driving in the rain. we were getting a bit tired and grumpy. This was instantly corrected with a great supper. Fish and chips, Kerry beef and Guiness pie over colcannon.
As best I can tell, colcannon is made different by everyone, but is basically mashed potatoes, cabbage and ham mixed. Aaron’s vegetarian dish this time wasn’t very good.
Rehydrated and restocked with calories, we forced ourselves to head back into town, because several places that didn’t have anything last night, listed traditional music for tonight. This time we wisely chose a place called the Wander Inn. A man and his wife played and sang. I will try to find the CD with their name on it.  The music was quite good, but the passion with which they sang raised the level to great. We still had to leave early due to an early morning tomorrow to beat the tour busses around the ring of Kerry.