Our favorite 'Beara' hike

On one of my parents' rest days, the four of us explored an area not far from Knockatee House. There was a sign on the side of the road for Gleninchaquinn Park and a stone circle (below), so down the little local road we went! Here's a map that shows the general location of Knockatee and the places we visited that day. http://goo.gl/maps/zpTWk as well as a pic of the tourist map we were using.

We were heading down the dark yellow dead-end road on the middle of the map (near the loughs).

At one point, there was a fork in the road and we had to choose between going toward the Park or going toward the archaeological sites (marked with a sign like the one below) - we choose to go through the cattle gate toward the archaeological sites. A famine house is where there was a house that is now in ruins since it was abandoned during the potato famine of the 1850's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)). A fulagh feagh is a fairy fort (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_fort), which are the ancient remains of ring forts or other circular dwellings.

The first stop along the dirt 2-track was for the stone circle. Of course, on our way toward these sites, Jamieson fell asleep in the car...so, Watson and I went first and then Jubin went to see the circle (short hike). This was by far our most favorite stone circle - just an AMAZING setting: surrounded by peaceful loughs, with a large waterfall in the background, and sheep wandering around us.

I'm not exactly sure which loughs these are...but they sure are pretty!

The path.

The circle with a lough and waterfall in the background.

From the top of the path, looking back down the trail
Can just make out our van parked at the road in front of the lough. 

From the van, this little stream with sheep grazing...

The bridge over the little stream to a picnic table - what a spot for a picnic!

Notice the aqua paint on the sheep? We found out that each farmer uses a different
color and marks their sheep in a different spot so that they can differentiate their sheep
from the other farmers' sheet when rounding them up. 

Watson and I played in the stream while Jubin visited the circle - raced sticks!

Then, we took the little road further on to where it ended (there was a sign that said you must park here - only residents could go further on to the huge houses at the end of the small 2-track). Watson was done with hiking and had seen enough archaeology for a while, so he stayed in the van with Jamie while Jubin and I followed the, not very-well marked or worn, trail to the other sites. Watson was instructed to toot the van horn if he needed us, and off we went - both of us felt funny leaving the boys there in the van...was a weird feeling to leave them behind! But, we were out in the middle of nowhere, hadn't seen a soul since we took the turn away from the Park, and Watson was not bothered. It was also weird for us, I think, because I cannot remember the last time that Jubin and I hiked somewhere alone together, even if just for 20 min!

The "road" we were driving on.

This hike took us even further up in altitude - some amazing views of the loughs below.

Stone circle? Fairy fort?

Famine house

When we got back to the van, Jamie had woken up. But, Watson said that he was in good spirits, so he didn't feel like he needed to honk the horn at us. Of course, then Jamieson promptly fell and hurt himself trying to get to us in the van... Oh well!

What a great outing. Absolutely gorgeous natural and man-made sites, and ones that I am quite sure many, many tourists don't even know exist. On our way back down to the 'main' road, we did pass 2 other cars heading toward these sites. So, in one day, they might have been seen by a dozen people. Fun!