Visiting Mom & Dad in Dundrum

My parents stayed a week in Dundrum, about an hour south of Belfast. Their holiday let was a condo in a building right on the bay (The Quay), with gorgeous views of the water, its wildlife, and the Mourne Mountains in the background. Very pretty. They saw seals and lots of birds, and my Mom said that this holiday let was one of the best they stayed in on their trip (a total of 11 places over the course of 8 weeks). We would definitely stay there if given the opportunity - we haven't explored the Mourne Mtns, Tullymore Forest Park, or Murlogh Bay yet! Here's a map of the area: http://goo.gl/maps/pVWf1.

The Quay in Dundrum - http://www.homeaway.co.uk/p86767

Low tide in Dundrum Bay.

The clouds are hiding the mountain tops!

We went down to visit them twice while they were there, once on the weekend and once during the week. On Sunday, there was an injured seal in the Bay - it appeared to have an injured fin. We saw the seal move and swim, but it definitely wasn't quite right.  The seal very much upset Mom and she asked us about calling Exploris. But as it turns out, there were at least 3 upset women in the building, all calling the police, coast guard, and area nature centers for help, so we didn't need to intervene. Eventually the seal disappeared on its own.

Taking a walk along the Sea

Later in the week, we went back to Dundrum to see my cousin Leah. She married a man (Tom) from Bunclody, Republic of Ireland, and they were visiting his family on holiday. Unfortunately, Tom was delayed due to work in Uruguay, and didn't get into the Dublin airport until the afternoon we were supposed to meet them in Dundrum. But, we got to meet Tom's parents, 2 brothers, and sister, and see Leah for a while. Then, we all drove to Castlewellan for dinner at Maginns Bar (http://www.maginnsbar.com/). Good place, great company, and we even got to see Tom before we had to leave to get the boys home for bed. 

The Ring of Kerry - too much of a good thing?

One day when we were staying at Knockatee House on the Beara, we drove through Kenmare and to the West to do the Southern part of the Ring of Kerry.

The Ring of Kerry is by far the most popular, well-known ring in SW Ireland (as compared to the Ring of Beara and the Dingle Ring). Perhaps not surprisingly, then, we liked it the least. Certainly, there were some really cool sights to see. But, the Ring of Kerry is by far the biggest of the "Rings" at ~180km total (meaning a much longer drive with more time in the car between sights), is the busiest, and has the worst roads due to all of the huge tour buses traveling around it every year. Although we saw some really great stuff that day while driving about half of the Ring of Kerry, we all agreed that we probably wouldn't go back or recommend it to others (compared to other places in SW ROI). 

Our 1st stop was in the village called Sneem - cute! Beautiful river going through it.
We got scones and coffees, used the public loos, and visited the river bank before moving on.

Our second stop was at a really awesome ring fort - Staigue Fort (http://www.theringofkerry.com/staigue-fort) that was likely built ~300AD. Mom walked about half-way up to the Fort where she had a great view of it and the surrounding scenery while the rest of us explored. SO amazing...we would recommend this sight to others visiting the area!

Yep, still nursing! :)

See how LARGE this fort is? Watson looks teeny!

King of the Mtn!

The amazingly-crafted ceiling of one of the little rooms.

The sheep in Ireland are marked with spray paint - the color and location and shape of the marking
help the farmers keep their sheep straight. First purple ones (Watson and Dad's fav color)!

Baby...

There was a stream by the fort that Watson and Grampa
played race the stick, flower, anything on the ground in.

Third stop was a beach near Castlecove for our picnic lunch and a bit of sand play. It was very pretty there, but there weren't any public bathrooms, so we had to pay buy a beer and ice cream at the pub on the beach. Sounds like a good idea, but we were all pretty annoyed at the lack of facilities and the boys were probably about done for the day at this point (not done yet!).

Cuties...

The scenery along the drive was gorgeous...as we bumped and swerved along!

Next stop - Ballinskelligs or "Baile na Sceilge" (http://www.theringofkerry.com/towns-villages/ballinskelligs). We pulled into the car park for the beach and Watson and I explored the old castle ruins (we called these "random ruins" throughout the trip - ruins not in the tour books, but still super-cool. Think Watson counted about 35 of these during the 2 weeks.).

Then, just down the road was a monastery that Dad and Jubin explored while I nursed Jamie in the van. One of the interesting things about this historical site was the fact that they are still burying people there.

This was our turn-around spot - we had originally planned to go further...the idea was to drive to Portmagee, take the ferry to Valentia Island, but we had underestimated the time required to drive that far, it was already close to supper time, and everyone was getting pretty grumpy and tired. On our way back to Knockatee House, we certainly were jounced around - this is the direction that the tour buses travel in and the road was REALLY bumpy. At one point, I almost hit the ceiling (was in the back seat)! Anyway, we stopped in Sneem again- this time for dinner at Sacre Coeur. The food was good but nothing special. However, we were all happy for a break from the van and the woman who served us brought out a bunch of toys for the boys to play with so we were happy. 

Beara to Dingle via the east end of Kerry....

We left Knockatee on a grey, wet Saturday morn. We sadly waved goodbye to the Beara, stopped in Kenmare for my Dad to see the great stone circle there while we grabbed take away lunch from Jam, and then we were on the road to Annauscaul. Kenmare to Annascaul is only about 55 miles, but those miles are hilly and narrow and there are lots of stops that could be made along the way. Here's a map of our route and stops: http://goo.gl/maps/QGSIv. Our first stop was at an Avoca store (http://www.avoca.com/home/explore/stores/?id=6) at Moll's Gap where we were hoping to park somewhere with a nice view, go to the loo, and eat our take away lunch. Well...at that point the weather had turned to a gale. Really. It was all my Mum could do to get inside to use the loo! The rain was coming sideways and hard and cold. I bought a nice warm pair of knee high socks and we huddled in the van eating, seeing nothing... Oh well! We had experienced such amazingly nice weather the first week of our trip that we could hardly complain...well, maybe a little! We saw the Ladies View from the van as well (http://www.killarneynationalpark.ie/Ladies%20View/Ladies%20View.htm) and hoped for a break in the weather before our next planned stop. 

Totally socked in...so lunch in the van!

Jamie loved the van...as long as he wasn't supposed to be seated and buckled!

Driving thru the Killarney National Park (http://www.killarneynationalpark.ie/), we were struck at how very beautiful it was. Forested and mossy green with amazingly pretty views of loughs and rivers. Luckily, by the time we got to the Torc Waterfall (http://www.killarneynationalpark.ie/Torc%20Waterfall/Torc%20Waterfall.htm), the weather had calmed, and we piled out of the van. Jubin and the boys and I hiked up the path to the beautiful falls, a little beyond there, and then went back to the van and encouraged my father to do the same. We also enjoyed watching the horse drawn carriages there, and the bikers going under the road using the stone underpass. Unfortunately, Mom wasn't feeling very well that day, so didn't see much but the HC bathroom, but at least it had stopped raining enough that she got good views from the car (and they had a HC loo for her to use!).

So fun - the bikers had the tunnel to the right to go through to get under the busy road.

Gotta love what they call horse-drawn carriages!

Through Killarney Town, then on to the Dingle Peninsula we went. Our holiday rental for 4 nights was in Annascaul (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annascaul), a village about 10 miles to the east of Dingle Town. It was a cute village, known for the explorer Tom Crean who went to the South Pole and earned an Albert Medal for rescuing other stranded explorers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Crean_(explorer)). Tom started a pub in the village, the "South Pole Inn", where I went one evening to finish my Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellows application, as well as a couple small groceries and little shops. We ended up getting take away 2 nights there and eating out in Dingle Town another night, in part because the house had such terrible kitchen facilities - it was all nicely and newly remodeled, but there was very little in the cupboards...not even dish towels or an oven mitt to take things out of the oven when cooking! One of the grocers in town had the most amazing bread though...the woman baked it herself in the shop, and it wasn't ready until lunchtime, much to our consternation a couple of mornings when we were wanting toast, but oh...so good! A wheaten, but a different one then we'd had before or have had since.

Mountain View home and view from the back (below) - pix from Trip Adviser

Mountain View, the name of this holiday let, was very pretty, large and airy, with gorgeous mountain views (http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/VacationRentalReview-g983232-d4212075-Mountain_View_Holiday_Home-Annascaul_Dingle_Peninsula_County_Kerry.html). However, it wasn't set up very well for us. In fact, we had to move the 2 single beds upstairs and the double bed downstairs, my Dad slept on a pull out couch (not advertised that way), and the handicapped bathroom kept flooding during my parent's showers! Oh, and the dryer was a condensing dryer that took hours to dry clothes and needed to be emptied multiple times each load... Oh well! The village was quaint, and nicely located among sights, the place had internet (after 8 nights without, we were ready!), the owner was lovely (Brid, pronounced Breed), and she gave us great advice about sights to see. I haven't reviewed this house yet, but would probably give it 3 out of 5 stars and wouldn't go out of my way to return...but, it was certainly not terrible, and we were rapidly realizing that you cannot have it all when traveling!