Sherkin Island

Let the WWOOFing begin! It’s the 21^st today—time for Ellen and I to start our stay on Sherkin Island, the second southernmost island in Ireland. The island is rather off the beaten path as it were: 106 people, 1 church, a community center, a school (with 7 attendees), 1 hotel, 2 pubs. That’s right, 2 pubs.

Ellen and I left Cork just after 11 and made it to Baltimore, the town across the bay from Sherkin, around 2. We grabbed a quick bite before making the 3 pm ferry to Sherkin. The ride isn’t long, only about 10 minutes, and provided stunning views of the bay. Once we arrived, it was a 5 minute walk to Joe and Fiona’s Bed and Breakfast, where we will be WWOOFing for the next 2 weeks.

Joe is a retired fisherman who attended Cambridge to study French and English. Fiona is a Homeopath and Massage Therapist who spent a good chunk of her 63 years raising 9 children. They’ve run the B&B on Sherkin for about 4 years now after spending a good portion of their lives living in County Clare. They also own a schooner, the Anna M., with which Joe uses to take guests whale-watching.

Upon our arrival at the house, no one appeared to be home, so we toured the grounds to find—surprise!!—6 of the cutest puppies I have ever seen in a pen near the garden. We oogled them for about 10 minutes before heading to the hotel for a drink. An hour later we came back to meet Fiona, an effusively warm soul who insisted on putting us up in one of the guest rooms during our stay. It’s a gorgeous room—and we have internet! Joe was out for the evening so we would have to meet him later.

Ellen and I took the dog, Tessa (mother of the 6 puppies outside), for a short walk before dinner. The sky had cleared a little bit and we were graced with a gorgeous sunset when we mounted a high point on the hill above Jo and Fiona’s cottage.

Dinner was a delightful affair—Fiona is a beautiful cook—and we exchanged stories from our lives over plates of lamb, potatoes, and kale picked straight from the garden. We retired early and slept like babes.

The town of Baltimore. That's pretty much it.

Ellen doesn't like it when I take photos of her eating.

We got lost on the dock looking for the ferry. We thought a large fishing brig on the other side of the pier was supposed to be the ship going to Sherkin as the ferry schedule had a big shipped pictured. It wound up being this dinky thing.

Apprehensive before meeting our hosts.

The inlet into the bay between the mainland and Sherkin.

The friary on Sherkin.

I was a little shocked there were roads and cars on the island seeing as how it's only 3 miles long, but I suppose a 3-mile walk to the pier every time you needed to get groceries would be quite the pain.

The gate to Horseshoe Cottage

Filming our arrival.

Sunset

Our room. Sometimes joked about as the maid's quarters.

Ross Castle and Ba-lar-ney!

After our harrowing adventure through Killarney National Park on the 18th, we decided to hit up one last thing before peacing out of Killarney, aka Irish Gatlinburg. In the morning we stopped by Ross Castle, a 3 km walk from town. The day was grey and the afternoon called for rain.

Ross Castle was pretty cool. It was set one of the park’s lakes and that, coupled with the gloomy weather, made the Castle appear extra foreboding.

Right after our visit Ellen and I hopped aboard the bus bound for Cork. We arrived around 2:30 and made it to our hostel by 3, only to discover that we couldn’t check in until 4. The hostel was across the river from the city and had no real pubs or restaurants around, so we headed for the train station across the street to get out of the rain. Ellen was Mr. Grumpy Gils at this point as the weather was bad and she was toting around about 60 lbs worth of her shit. I warned her not to overpack. But then again she does have everything we could possibly need (and have made use of), so I’m shutting my mouth on that subject. Once we checked into the hostel we hunkered down for the night since the weather was so bad outside.

The next day was chock full of adventure. Ellen and I made plans to see Blarney (or Ba-lar-ney as I like to say in a sing-songy voice) Castle in the morning and head to Kinsale in the afternoon. We made it to Blarney at half eight and dined at a local hotel for breakfast. Right when the Blarney grounds opened we made it in and pretty much had the place to ourselves. We explored the underground entrances, scaled the numerous slippery spiral staircases to the top (which was quite a bit more precarious than I would have thought, but apparently it’s supposed to be a feat to have kissed the Blarney Stone, that’s why it’s so famous), kissed the stone, then had some adventures on the castle’s grounds.

Ellen was not a major proponent of our trip to Blarney because one of the guidebooks said it was, and I quote, “kitschy.” The adventure of kissing the stone and the history of the castle was well worth the admission price; nothing struck us as being particularly tourist-y. Until we explored the gardens. The grounds were littered with places like the “Witch’s Kitchen” where “if one arrived early enough in the morning, they might see the dying embers of the fire she laid the night before.” We got to the “kitchen”, a concreted crevice located under a giant yew tree, where a bunch of unburned twigs lay strewn about the back end. The witch must have made do with a cheese sandwich the night before. The description of the “Druids Circle” began with the statement, “Since the dawn of time.” I didn’t need to read any further; we left shortly thereafter.

We made it back to Cork around lunch and bopped around the city a few hours before our bus left for Kinsale. The weather was nice and I much enjoyed the city. It was a manageable size and gave a clearer picture of working-class Ireland than either Dublin or Killarney had.

In the late afternoon and evening we were in Kinsale. Since it was Sunday, not a lot was open. We went because Kinsale was supposed to be this stunning fishing village, but to be honest, it just reminded me of resort towns in Michigan or Maine. We did have a lovely evening dinner of seafood chowder before making it back to the hostel around 8 pm.

Our morning on the grounds of Ross Castle.

It was a sky Mufasa would pop out of.

Some King Arthur shit right there.

"Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!"

St. Mary's Cathedral in Killarney

A traditional Irish thatched roof.

Ellen models all her shit. I told her to pack lighter. This was not a happy hour as Ellen and I had to wait in the train station before our hostel would re-open to sign people in.

There's that smile!

The Brookstone Converter Incident. Ellen insisted I plug my computer into the wall with this converter. Twenty minutes later, sparks start shooting out of the thing. Turns out it was only supposed to be used for hair dryers. But when you don't read the instructions beforehand, you wind up with incidents such as these. The red script here reads, "Warning: This 1800 watt Slide Switch is only to be used with travel hair dryer & iron. It should Never be used with electronic devices." Our bad.

Breakfast the day of our Blarney visit. Porridge with cream and fruit, brown bread, coffee and some fiber flakes. Gotta keep the plumbing running smoothly.

We approach Blarney Castle.

Blarney Castle. See the 3 fat openings in the middle? Those are poop chutes.

The Stone from the outside of Blarney Castle. It's the one at the bottom of those two metal bars.

Ellen poses at the entrance.

There were a couple of caves with tunnels leading up into the bowels of Blarney.

The upper courtyard. This puppy starts three stories up.

Kissing the Blarney! It's quite a stretch to get down there.

The Witch's Kitchen lay underneath.

Cork.

St. Anne's in Cork. The weathervane on the top is a giant golden cod.

A better view of the codpiece.

Two gentleman who died on the Lusitania.

"Set me free why don't you, babe?" This stain-glass window was the only good thing Kinsale had to offer.

Kinsale

Killarney National Park

Today we had a lovely pastoral adventure through Killarney National Park. Which involved getting lost. And hiking 14 miles.

We started the day off in the hostel's dining room for breakfast, where I made the grave error of mistaking Canadians for Americans. I had heard the couple at the table over from us speaking accented but fluent French. I also heard them reverting to English, which was spoken without an accent. They were also eating peanut butter with their breakfast, which I have never seen any French person do, ever. Given my information, I felt it safe to assume they were American study abroad students who were practicing their french. At the very least, she was French (I couldn't hear her well because her back was turned), and he was American. Anywho, I go up to their table and made some haughty comment (in French) about how I figured out their American-ness by the peanut butter on their table. Boy did I feel like an idiot to hear they were Quebecois. Whelp, serves me right for making an assumption and being pretentious.

Thirty minutes later Ellen and I were across the street at the grocery buying a lunch of meats, cheeses, and baguette for our proposed hike into Killarney National Park. We had planned to take the bus from Killarney into the park, but as it was not high tourist season there was no bus. Therefore, we would be hoofing it 3 miles just to get there. Once there we planned to see Muckross Abbey and Muckross House before heading back to town in the early afternoon. We were assured by the hostel's front deskman that it wouldn't take more than 2 hours to do the whole trip.

So we started off down Muckross Road towards the park. It was a gorgeous morning; the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, a slight breeze blew.

We made it to the entrance of the park 40 minutes after we set out. It was around 11:30 at this time. Initially Ellen and I both remarked on how much the grounds reminded us of Holliday Park in Indianapolis. By noon we reached Muckross Abbey, an old Franciscan Friary which was simply stunning. Visitors were welcome to explore the place so Ellen and I got right in. There were some awesome nooks and crannies as well as a second and third level.

We pressed on, this time with the goal of reaching Muckross House. We had seen pictures of it online; it had a beautiful lawn and just beyond sat the lake. Ellen and I had no proper park map, but a good idea of where the house was. The paths were also fairly well marked. We followed a lake path, all the time keeping the lake on out right as we headed south. We came across a fork in the road and took the right fork (which stayed closer to the lake), believing that all paths would eventually lead to the house. So long as we kept the lake on our right, we would stumble upon the house. Or so we thought.

A half hour later I began to doubt our bearings. An hour later we came through some trees and found water on out left, at which point I knew we'd done something wrong. We whipped out the tiny, stark map of Killarney National Park in Ellen's Frommer's Guide and I deduced that we had made out way onto the pennisula between two of the park's lakes. We had the option of turning back or pressing forward to make a massive loop. It was decided we would make a loop. This would afford us a chance to see Muckross house as we rounded back as well as see some of the park's other attractions.

We stopped for lunch in a yew forest, so chosen for its profusion of moss, which was great for resting one's weary tush upon. Ellen discovered a veritable toadstool of moss. I'd say the verdant layer was at least 6 in. thick--cushy stuff.

Shortly after lunch we came across Dinis Cottage and 'The Meeting of the Waters," which was supposed to be this terrifically scenic view of the lakes flowing into one another. It wasn't anything to write home about, so I'm going to stop there. We then took a small detour to see Torc Waterfall. Really the only thing of note there was a group of rude Spanish teenagers. It reminded me of one of those pull-off 'scenic spots' found on the side of the road at National Parks. It's full of fatty tourists not willing to take a real hike and the 'attraction' typically isn't that spectacular. In fact, it should be noted that Killarney National Park and its gateway town of Killarney much resemble Smokey Mountain National Park and Gatlinburg.

After Torc, we finally made it to Muckross House and Ellen and I basked on the lawn as the sun went down. It was still a solid 4 miles back to town, but at least we knew where we were going this time around. We made it to our hostel around 6 and made a quick meal of pasta (which would have been an enjoyable process had it not been for a bunch of gawking Chinese tourists fascinated with our struggle to uncork our wine without the use of a bottle opener), which was devoured most readily. Back in the room before bed, we estimated our round trip had been about 14 miles. But if I were forced to choose a place where I would be willing to hike 14 miles, Killarney NP would certainly be it.

Okay, so see the little brown sign with the tree in it near Muckross House? We meant to go to the house and make it there by lunch. Instead we took the path that goes around the entirety of middle lake. We should have been to Muckross House around 12:30 pm. Instead we got there around 4 pm.

We were pretty excited to have actually found the park entrance. It was touch-and-go there for a while.

We thought the opening green of the park looked exactly like Holliday Park in Indy.

The ruins at Holliday Park aren't this cool though. This is Muckross Abbey, built in the 16th century.

The fireplace is on the second floor and is massive. Apparently many kitchens back in the day were built on the second floor so that if something caught fire, the whole damn building didn't go down.

Holliday Park also doesn't have these massive yew trees! I was waiting for Merlin or some Druid to pop out from behind one of them!

The magical yew wood in which we supped.

Ellen's moss toadstool.

The Meeting of the Waters.

Torc Waterfall. Not worth the tourist riff-raff.

The grounds of Muckross House. Finally we found the damn thing.

Muckross House.

We went back and took a photo next to our wrong turn. It wasn't very well marked.

Sunset as we left the park. Still 3 miles to go. So tired by this point.