The Ring of Kerry is one of the most well-known tourist routes in Ireland and included in my USAC experience was a weekend tour of the Kerry countryside. I was so excited for this trip because the views were supposedly gorgeous and EVERYTHING was already paid for - including food which if anyone knows me they know how much I love to eat!!! The tour left on Friday morning and we wouldn't return to Cork until Sunday night. Our first stop on the tour was Crag Cave located in County Kerry. The cave is made entirely out of limestone and was first explored in 1981 by a diver who dove through a sump and discovered the large caverns underneath. For some reason this discovery fascinated me because I couldn't imagine diving blindly into dark waters with no notion of what was on the other side (if anything was) but he resurfaced meters away in a pool which is shown below inside the giant cavern. Luckily for us they built an entrance so we didn't have to dive underwater to enter the cave; the tour was very informational and we learned a great deal about limestone and many of the caverns are named after characters from J.R.R Tolkien's book "The Middle Earth"!!! The pool the diver surfaced in! We then left the cave and continued onto the hotel we would be staying at for the rest of the weekend. The hotel was amazing and it was centrally located in the middle of the Ring of Kerry so we wouldn't have another long bus ride until we left to go back to UCC. Dinner at the hotel was incredible; I had the most amazing fish and cheesecake. Since the trip I was on was a heritage student trip our entertainment for the first night was to have a local singer come to the hotel so we could learn traditional Irish songs and learn the history behind them. Our next day was jam packed with places to visit! The morning started off with the Skellig Ring tour which included stops at Valentia Island, Geoghan Mount & Fogher Cliffs, Skellig experience center, and the Valentia lifeboat. Along the way we learned about each place we were visiting and when we stopped at the Skellig experience center we had a fantastic view of Skellig Michel (incredible historic monastery and place where most recent Star Wars was filmed!). In the background of the photo below, the pointed, larger island is Skellig Michel. Sadly because we weren't there during the summer we couldn't take a boat out to the island but one day I hope to return and visit the island since I have heard amazing things about it. Even during the summer its really hard to reach the island because it requires perfect conditions in order to land a boat along the jagged coastline of the island so that visitors can walk up to the monastery. After all of our morning adventures, we headed back to the town where our hotel was to visit O'Connell Memorial Church, Cahergal Stone Fort, and Ballycarberry Castle. The fort was awesome because we could climb to the top and walk around the walls but then I went with my group and held a little baby lamb named Joe (highlight of my weekend). Since this weekend was a heritage weekend trip geared for students, the organizers planned heritage events for us like learning traditional Irish songs. Tonight's events included learning how to Irish dance and play Gaelic football. Irish dancing is way more tiring than I thought but my friend, Hunter, made it a little easier on me since she was my partner and she has Irish danced competitively since she was a little girl. Gaelic football was very interesting and I still have no idea how to play it because the rules are so different. But, it is still a very fascinating sport to watch and so unique in its history and heritage. For the last event of the night before bedtime, we had a trivia night and my group WON!!! We won coasters made from Valencia Stone which are beautifully made from the stone that used to be mined at the Valencia mine nearby Cahersiveen. At this point I would like to acknowledge that I know I am an adult when winning coasters is the prize for trivia lol. On our last day before heading back to Cork we drove the rest of the Ring of Kerry! Needless to say the views were beautiful and every place we stopped was filled with history and beauty (as much of Ireland is). The slideshow below shows some of the places we stopped along the way. Even in the cold and damp, this weekend was fabulous and I can't wait for more of my upcoming adventures!
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AuthorThe rambling thoughts of a millennial's adventures abroad Archives
May 2017
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