Day 25: Touring the Ring of Kerry

Today, I slept in a little which is a good thing. I went looking for breakfast at a little after 8:30. The sad thing is that the restaurant don't open till 9am or later. After walking around trying to find breakfast, I did find place that opened at 8:00. I had a full Irish breakfast. It consisted of an egg, three sausages, baked beans, chips, two slices of bacon (which over hear tastes like ham), tea, and orange juice. Good thing it didn't have white and black puddings. That was a jumbo lrish breakfast. I ate everything. I guess I was hungry after that early bird dinner :). Tomorrow I'm not leaving the hotel till 9am to look for breakfast. The bus I'm planning to catch isn't till 10:30.

So after breakfast, I stopped by the hotel to grab some granola bars because who knows when lunch will be in the tour and walked around town. Before heading to the tour office, which won't exchange my confirmation email for a ticket until 10:00, tour start at 10:30. I went inside a jewelry store. If anyone knows me, I really can't resist buying jewelry. I saw this Celtic knot necklace on the window and then inside I saw this nice Celtic knot charm bracelet. Don't worry, it was sterling silver so it won't cost the farm. I was going to think about these items and maybe return and get one or both after the tour.

At 10:00, I exchange my ticket, The Dero's Tour for Ring of Kerry for €18 from 10:30 to a little after 17:00. There were a lot of people doing this tour.  It was a good tour which frequent enough stops of bathroom and/or food breaks. Our first stop was Killoglin, or outside of it, to the Kerry Bog Museum. This museum is small. It had ponies, wolfhounds, thatched houses, and bogs. It costed €5 and the guide only gave 25 minutes at this stop. I didn't go in so I waited by the cafe with the other people. There were 7 big tour buses in the parking lot. I'm guessing the Ring of Kerry is a must do thing.

The next stop was at a Shepard demonstration. It cost €5 and is worth it. The Shepard showers 12 different species of sheep and then a herding demo with his two border collies. It was unbelievable to watch that the dog can respond to signal, verbal and whistles, to get the sheep moving in the right direction. And each dog learn different signals and commends in a year and a half period. Since sheep have no natural predators in Ireland, the Shepards are not worried about the sheep in far away fields or up in the hills. Since the dogs are closely related to the wolves, the sheep are naturally afraid of the dogs. When the dogs are herding the sheep, the dogs have this hunting instinct stance/body language.

After that, we drove along the coast and stopped Waterville for lunch. I had a hearty vegetable soup. Since we had an hour in the Waterville, we got to take nice coastal pictures and walk along the wall. There is even a life size statue of Charlie Chapin in the town since Chaplin spent a lot of his retirement in Waterville. After lunch, we just made photo stops along the coast. Then we stopped in Sheem for a little bit, and they had a good ice cream place there. I had honeycomb with bits of toffee in it. Good ice cream.
Then we stopped at Moll's Gap, Ladies view in Killarney National Park, and driving through the Park before ending in Killarney.

After the tour, I stopped at the jewelry store before heading back to the hotel. I bought the bracelet. The necklace is from an Irish company and are available everywhere. If I really want the necklace, I can buy it later. On the way back to the hotel, I checked out the menus of the restaurants along the way. I was going to eat attention restaurant a few doors down, the but then I saw the early bird menu for the pub at the hotel. I thought the menu said potato pancakes (boxty) but it said potato cakes. The potato cakes were very nice. They were breaded and pan fried. It came with veggies and salad. I also had a cheesecake for dessert. The menu said lemon but I got like a tiramisu cheesecake instead.

After I went up to the room to shower and am back down at the lobby for wifi and listening to the live Irish music. The wifi is not that great in the room. There are some people here in the lobby. There's right now three tour groups staying at the hotel. The hotel is big enough to house all these people and is right in the heart of town. Other big hotels look expensive around here.

Tomorrow's agenda: Making my way to Waterford and to the Waterford factory