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| Stop One!🤣 |
I was a little nervous about riding the left side of the road at first, but by the end of the day I think we were both feeling pretty comfortable. This might be a good way to transition into driving on the left, I’m not sure…
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| One Of Our First Sights - An Omen?? |
The weather as we set out was mostly cloudy, and by the time we were out of town we got our first rain shower of the day. We already had our waterproof jackets on, but it was coming down hard enough that we decided to pull over and get our waterproof pants on as well. Of course by the time we did this, the sun was out.🤪 No matter, the pants remained on for the rest of the day, and good thing because intermittent showers would be the theme of the day.
Our second stop came at a little town called Ventry. We stopped in at the village shop and grabbed a tea/coffee, and split a sprinkle donut. As we sat down on a picnic table beside the shop, the rain started. As we finished our drinks and snack, the rain stopped!!
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| Jojo Sheltering With His Coffee |
We hit the road again and headed for Wine Strand, which is a beach on the west side of the Dingle Peninsula. After a pretty big climb, and several spells of rain we made it. Although it was very windy, we sat on a bench at the point and enjoyed some more spectacular scenery, as well as a few cormorants standing guard on the rocky point.
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| Cormorants At Wine Strand |
After a while we hopped back on the bikes and doubled back to Muirioch Beach. The beach was probably 2 km long, and offered some more beautiful views to enjoy. I’m not sure how busy it is in the summer but I could only count about five people on the entire beach when we were there.
Next we decided to head over to the brewpub where we were scheduled to have a tour at 3:00 pm, even though we were a couple of hours early. When we got there we asked if the kitchen was open - it wasn’t - but they offered us a bowl of soup and some bread which was very helpful in warming us up. There were a few other people there in the pub, but one sweet girl saw us from outside and decided she liked us most and befriended us.
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| We Didn’t Know We Had Made A New Friend At This Point… |
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| Getting To Know Us |
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| We Have Been Accepted |
After a couple of hours relaxing (the three of us), our tour started. Fortunately for us the other groups didn’t show, so it was just Jojo and I. The brewmaster toured us through the very small operation. It was very interesting and informative, and we both learned a lot. After a small tasting Jojo and I got on the bikes and hit the road again, to begin the trek back to Dingle.
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| Action Shot #1 |
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| Action Shot #2 |
We opted for one more stop on the way home, the Gallarus Oratory. It is a 1,300-year old dry masonry building, built by Christians, before Viking and Norman invasions.
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| Gallarus Oratory |
We had one last climb over Ballymore Point, followed by a 10 km descent back into Dingle. The scenery continued to be very pleasing, and it was a nice way to end our ride around Dingle Peninsula
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| View As We Approached Ballymore Point |
After a quick cleanup we headed downtown. We stopped at the Dingle Pub for some traditional Irish music, followed by a delicious dinner at Paul Geanny’s Pub. We are now back in the room, getting ready for bed. Our bags are packed for the trip to Doolin tomorrow morning.
The trip is starting to go by a little too fast, but that must mean we are having some fun. So far the experiences have been authentic and very enjoyable. We have really appreciated the kindness that has been directed our way (with the exception of the bus drivers…), and are hopeful that it continues. That’s it for now. We will be posting from Doolin tomorrow night if everything goes well!!
Scenery looks incredible!!
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