A sort of weird lethargy had fallen over me after we got back from Paris. I still went to class, but I didn’t go out, we stayed in Galway for a weekend. After having seen what the continent had to offer, I was done with Ireland, its quaint small towns were no longer enough for me. But I knew I had to try and go somewhere to break out of this lull. At first we thought about Belfast, but Norah was tired of cities and I’ll go there when my parents come. So then we settled on a small town beyond Belfast, Ballycastle, situated close to Giant’s Causeway, a neat little island, and featuring its own castle. But the bus situation was impossible to figure out and it would take forever to get there nonetheless. So we focused our attention in the opposite direction and decided on Dingle Peninsula, with a base in the town of Dingle.
It took us a little over six hours to get Dingle. It had rained on and off our entire trip on the bus, but we hoped it would clear. Unfortunately as soon as November came, so did the winter weather that everyone had warned us about, spots of intense rain broken by crisp sunshine. I’ve seen more rainbows in the last two weeks than my entire life, and they are no longer a welcome sight. This weather proved to be the standard everywhere and so we got off the bus in sunshine, walking a few yards into heavy cold rain. I had emailed a hostel the night before with no response, it ended up being out of town a bit, we made it most of the way there before the sidewalk ended. No strangers to walking the side of the road we considered going on, but we weren’t sure how much farther the hostel was and the wet conditions concerned us with such fast moving cars. Plus it seemed once we got to the hostel we would be stuck there until the next day. So we headed back into town. Just wanting to get out of the rain we went into a B&B and enquired about a room for the night. They had one available and we took it, spending as much for one night in the B&B as we would have for two nights at the hostel.
But it was worth it. For once we had our own private room, no worries about when our anonymous roommates would wander in, or want to go to bed. It was warm and comfy. We were delighted to find it had an electric kettle along with tea and coffee and biscuits. The breakfast alone made it worth it, for once we had a big proper filling breakfast. At hostels its usually corn flakes and toast, which usually means just toast for me. We also ate in the pub down below our first night, and had a pint, before going to a local supermarket and picking up hot chocolate mix and cookies to have in our room.
We had originally intended to rent bicycles and explore the peninsula area, but the weather simply wouldn’t allow it. So we went the next morning to the tourist office to see what our options were. While there was a small aquarium in town that I was somewhat curious about we both wanted to see more of the Peninsula area, which is around the famed Ring of Kerry region. Boat tours are usually available but again the weather was not permitting. Our only option was a minibus tour, but they won’t take parties less than four. A German couple was also enquiring about taking a tour and for a few moments it seemed they might come along but fortunately the man was too picky to decide. On a lark the woman at the office called a local tour guide who was going out later that day with a group of three American boys, she was going to ask if we could join. Luckily for us he had the morning free and was more than happy to take just Norah and I around.
His name was Dennis, and he drove us around in his own small green hatchback. I had sort of a flashback of when my mother put Megan and I into a taxi with a smiling toothless driver in Jamaica, but I figured the tourism lady knew we were with him. Dennis was very nice and knew a lot about the local sights. He took us out on Slea Head Drive a road perched along the cliffs. We started out at the British landlord’s house, now a school run by nuns and then proceeded out of the town into the mountains. The weather actually aided in creating some beautiful scenery. The sea was violent and foaming, but still maintained an aquamarine color. We stopped at a few points to take pictures only to be swayed by the wind and lashed with rain. In one spot we stopped the storm had broken for a while and there was beautiful blue skies to match the sea, but even despite that taking the pictures proved difficult in such violent wind. Other than outlooks, Dennis took us over the upside down bridge so named because the water runs over the bridge not under it, a gorgeous old church made completely with dry stone like the fences that dissect the countryside and Ryan’s beach, so named for Ryan’s Daughter a film starring Robert Mitchum, which according to Dennis was a huge boon for the local economy at the time and the cast much more welcoming than the Ron Howard film Far and Away which was also locally shot. The tour was a little over an hour, but it got us to see what we had wanted to and still keep us warm and dry, well relatively so.
After our tour we grabbed lunch and discussed what we were going to do next. We decided we would head back to Galway on the four o’clock bus. To waste the four hours we did a little shopping, I picked up a wonderful warm blue wool sweater and a ring. We also tried to visit Dingle’s most famous resident, Fungie the dolphin, I kid you not he lives in the bay and has done so for over 20 years. Dennis had given us directions to an outlook where we could possibly see him. It was beyond a nice hotel and covered in seaweed and refuse. When I was younger I would watch movies like Andre, Free Willy, Black Beauty and wish or secretly believe that I too could have a special connection with an animal one that would cause it to jump spectacularly in the air or calm down from wild outbursts, but this gift has alluded me and unfortunately it didn’t show itself as we looked for Fungie, and neither did Fungie. Norah kept insisting that we had to get closer to the water for him to know we were here, but I kept insisting I didn’t want to smell like fish for the bus ride back, so we went a little farther but with no success.
It was a quick trip and probably our most extravagant but it was worth it. The views were spectacular, combining the mountains we had seen in Connemara with the coasts of the islands. But more than anything it shook me from my lull and got me excited and ready to travel again. Now its just a matter of where to next?
Dingle Photos
