The Ring of Beara

One day, we drove the "Ring of Beara," a 195 km loop around the Peninsula (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beara_Peninsula), and visited sites along the way. See tourist map below. This ring is much less traveled than the well-known Ring of Kerry. In fact, it barely makes some tour books. But, we thought that it was really beautiful. The scenery was very brown and grey, with bedrock and brown grasses dominating the landscape. The roads were narrow, twisty, and dotted with tunnels. We saw MANY signs for archaeological sites (note the brown symbols on the map below), and lots of sites aren't even marked. It felt like we could have spent a month exploring the Peninsula and still not seen everything. We never made it to a playground or a beach on the Beara Way, even though we saw some gorgeous ones (marked in yellow on the map below) and had planned on doing both. 

We started at Knockatee around 10am, which is near the town called Tuosist on the map above, went east on R571 to N71 south to Glengarrif, to R572 west to the very point of the Peninsula, then back to Knockatee heading east on R575/571. Thanks for all the great driving Jubin!

 Below are pix of some of the places we stopped along the way. Really, we probably saw only 25% of the sites! Gorgeous.

This was a random beautiful spot off of N71 - first pic of the day!

Our first extended stop was Bonane Heritage Park (marked on N71 on the map above; http://www.bonaneheritagepark.com/), where they let us drive up close to the sites so that Mom could be with us. There is a ring fort, famine houses, a stone circle, a fulachta fidah (Bronze Age cooking pit; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulacht_fiadh), a bullaun stone (stone with a water-filled depression; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullaun), and a monolith (standing stone; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menhir) - all close together with trails between them!  

While standing at the stone circle, Watson noticed these 2 Red Deer does - good eyes!
Deer are NOT very common in ROI/NI - these are the 1st we've seen all year. 

More info about Red Deer here: http://www.wilddeerireland.com/reddeer.html

Watson's face here was him saying something like
"but, it is so small...I thought they were big!"

There were a bunch of rock tunnels along N71 too - this was the road that we accidentally took on our first night when we were trying to get to Knockatee House. Cool during the day, not so much late at night after a long day!

Right before Glengariff, we stopped at Gelngariff Nature Reserve (http://www.glengarriffnaturereserve.ie/) for a picnic lunch. Was a perfect spot for it! Unfortunately, I didn't get any pix there, but it was really nice - picnic tables, woods, and a beautiful stream for the boys to play in. Unfortunately, no bathrooms...It certainly felt like we spent a lot of time during these 2 weeks searching for HC accessible bathrooms! Not the easiest to come by...

At the very tip of the Peninsula, you can take this cable car (seats 7) across to Dursey Island - so cool! We wanted to do the trip, but all of the return trips were booked until 7pm, so we would have had to wait 4 hours to get back...and, the island basically has nothing on it except hiking trails. Not this time around! But, we had a really nice time here, viewing the scenery and wildlife.

We still aren't sure what exactly we were watching in the Sea there...whale? Orca? Shark?
Whatever it was, it was very large! And, it hung out for a long time while we watched. 

Random ring fort - so neat... In the pic below, it is in the background.

This is what the road looked like - narrow, right along the edge of cliffs and hills.
In the pic below, the same road starts in the left-hand corner and goes along into the middle of the pic.

On the way back to Knockatee, we passed MANY places we wanted to explore...But, we had all had enough. Signing Time was playing in the back, Watson and my Mom were sick of being in the car, and Jubin was sick of driving. 

Knocking around Knockatee

The house we rented on the Beara Peninsula was great! Here's a map of the approximate location of the house: http://goo.gl/maps/c8Tx2. The place wasn't perfect, not home, but really great. We were there for 8 nights and 7 days, exploring Kenmare, the Beara Peninsula, and the southern part of the Ring of Kerry. The local road leading out to the house was amazingly narrow, steep, and twisty. Coming up the driveway, here is what the back of the house looked like, with our big van parked in front.

The amazing views from the front of the house, deck, and garden.
A small inlet of the Kenmare River Bay.

We also spent Easter here, and of course, were visited by the Easter bunny who left behind a note, Easter stuffed animals, sweeties (that's what they call candy/chocolate here!), and an outdoor egg hunt for the boys. Watson was very cute helping Jamie look for his eggs...and, Jamie was happy to help Watson eat his sweeties (Watson still doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, whereas Jamie certainly does!). That day was absolutely gorgeous, weather-wise. I think that day remains the warmest we've had this year!

Kinder Eggs are a big thing here and for Watson -
they are milk and white chocolate eggs with a toy inside.
Jamie eats the chocolate and Watson gets the toy! Sort of
reminiscent of Jacks from when I was a kid.  

Walking down the driveway gave you access to the Sea. The tides were pretty large, so we had lots of good shell- and rock- and creature-hunting.

And, just around the corner was a public access site that had huge boulders and tide pools. Very reminiscent of Milbridge, ME.

It was very hard to get good pix of these 3 - someone was always moving, blinking, or frowning!

Anemone!

Sponge!

Crabs!

Jubin and I each went running a few times, and we got out once to run together that week, which was fun. The area was really hilly, but amazingly scenic. Here's a random barn along the local road that I liked:

And, then on our last day at the house, we decided to go over to N71 to a cute gift shop we had seen when we did the Ring of Beara: Molly Gallivan's. However, rather than take R571 to N71 like we had done before, we decided to take the small, local road that was on the tourist map - the one in dark yellow below that cuts between those 2 roads and comes out near Bonane, right near the gift shop. Well, let me just tell you...not a good idea! This "road" was a 2-track much of the time, and was seriously on the edge of cliffs, taking sharp turns on very steep hills out in the middle of farm fields. At one point, I thought the van might roll, even! But, there was no where to turn around, and we were pretty sure we were on the road that the map showed...eventually, we came across a local who was walking. She confirmed that we were on the correct road and were almost to N71. She also sort of laughed at us and asked if we were following a sat nav (GPS) because often they tell tourists to go that way since it is shorter in distance than the other route. Nope, just follwoing the map! Guess it is a good story to be able to tell...Oh, and we did at least make a purchase at the gift shop - Jubin got his patchwork Irish hat there! Needless to say, we returned home on the "main" roads.

We all agree that Knockatee House was the best of the 3 places we stayed during our trip in SW ROI. And, we'd all go back. The views were spectacular and we saw lots of wildlife, including my parents saw a pine martin! However, there were a few downsides to the place: no internet (none) and the closest place to get connected was Kenmare (20-25 min each way), only 1 shower in my parents' bathroom (the family shower was broken), the clothes dryer vented to the mudroom (took us a while to figure out why our clothes weren't drying and why the mudroom was completely wet - thought there was a leak first), being off-season meant the the nearby pubs weren't serving food during the week, and the drive to Kenmare was NOT short. But, the owners were very nice, the house was pretty well stocked, we were super-close to a mini-golf course (played 4 rounds of 18 holes during the week), and the price was reasonable. I found the place on TripAdviser (http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g211860-d4214582-r205048515-Knockatee_House-Kenmare_County_Kerry.html) and I have submitted a 4/5 star, positive review:

"My husband, two young kids, and elder parents stayed here recently. The setting is just gorgeous...amazing views and an easy walk across the dirt road to the sea to collect rocks and shells or crab. The house is set up with a nice wing at the end that has a big bedroom with a sitting area, master ensuite and an adjoining single room. This setup was great for my parents! We used the double and twin rooms closer to the living areas and everyone had their own space. The only downside was that the family bathroom off the main hallway doesn't have a shower (bath only), so we had to go through one of my parent's bedrooms to take showers. Otherwise, the house is well-appointed. A couple of the beds could do with mattress toppers and we wished for Internet service (nearest place off-season was a 20 min drive), but, really, if the place had another shower and Internet, I would have never left! 

In terms of the area, the house is about 20 min from Kenmare, which is super. We liked our dinner at Mulcahy's best and lunch at Jam's. The stone circle in Kenmare is fab, as is the one close to Knockatee near Gleninchaquin Park. We really, really liked the Beara Peninsula. Driving that ring was amazing, with lots of views, tunnels, and archeological sites. Reserve a cable car ride at the end of the Peninsula to go over to the island - only holds 6 people! We saw an orca there too. 

The hosts were lovely. They aren't local, but they gave us lots of info about the house and area via email and left us lots of info in the house. They also had left us a welcome pack with local food, let us use fishing gear and their spotting scope, and were responsive during our stay. Very nice people!
One thing to help future renters: I recommend arriving during the day. The road out to the house is narrow, twisty, and dark. We made it, but wondered how the next day when we saw where we'd been!"