When we got up this morning, it looked like the weather was going to be pretty good for the day, so we booked ourselves into a tour of Gap of Dunloe. The tour included bus from Killarney to Ross Castle, then a boat from Ross Castle into Killarney National Park (about a 1.5 hour boat ride). Most people opted to pay extra to ride the Gap in a horse-drawn carriage. Brent and I chose the option to walk the Gap instead. It's about 12km, up over the Gap with a gain of about 170m. They drop you off at the start at about 12:30, and the carriages come to pick folks up at about 1:30 (after lunch). Brent and I snarfed lunch to get a head start on our walk back, as the bus returns to pick you up at the far end, departing at 4PM. We got on the road at 1:00, so we had three hours to walk the 12km. I hoofed it the whole way because 3 hours is fairly aggressive for me to do 12km. We ended up making it in 2.5 hours, which is the projected time allotment. Yay me! The weather was absolutely glorious. Dare I hope for more of the same tomorrow so we can do a bus tour of Ring of Kerry?
I bought a lovely new green merino sweater from Quills in Killarney. Said thanks and so long to the nasty old sweater.\n
From Brent: \"The first National Park (Killarney) in Ireland butts up against the town. We took a day trip through it on our first \n\nday. Bus to Ross Castle (the last castle to fall to the British in the war of colonization), boat across 3 lakes, \n\nthen hike through The gap of Dunloe (7 miles) to a pub where we got picked up for a bus trip back to town. The \n\nscenery was great with Rhododendrons blooming on the hills and assorted stone ruins on some of the lake islands. \n\nThere are supposed to be deer in the park but we didn't see any. We did see a pair of wild goats while walking The \n\nGap, a sight that we hadn't been told to watch for. The whole thing was about 7 hours and though we were told to be \n\nprepared for rain at any time it was sunny all day and I got a bit of a burn.\"
- Ross Castle
Our Gap of Dunloe tour started here. Our bus dropped us off and we had about 20 minutes to check out the castle before we had to get on the boat to take us into the National Park.
- Gap of Dunloe
- Gap of Dunloe
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