June 22

June 22nd (sunny and cloudy)
Left the Limerick area for a short, beautiful ride along the Dingle Peninsula overlooking the Atlantic. George chose the ring of Dingle instead of the ring of Kerry on suggestion of many of the locals that Kerry is far too commercialized. As we were driving, I mentioned a particular odor and we discovered the converter that we plug into the cigarette lighter outlet was smouldering. We were able to find a European-style “power converter” in a computer store in Kerry which made Georg very happy because he depends on the power for the computer for directions while we are driving. We also purchased another calor gas canister. This is the first replacement considering the amount of cooking I do. We keep a spare on hand also.
We arrived around noon to a 300-year-old hunting lodge converted into a hostel and camping site. Georg and I were always of the impression that hostels were for “youths” and not old farts like us. They are available to anyone and can be booked in advance, including double rooms. The prices vary, but are quite reasonable, but still twice as much as camping which is costing us approx. $35 Cdn/night.
Along our drive we discussed that Scotland has a much more varied and dramatic topography than Ireland and England. There are definitely fewer campgrounds and they are not maintained very well. Seems most people travel by coach and do B & B’s. We do enjoy the delightful colours the Irish paint their homes and old buildings. There are not so many brown-rock fences, but instead hedges of wild red fuschias and other beautiful shrubbery. On our travels today we saw why they refer to Ireland as the “Emerald Isle” as the sun broke through the clouds highlighting segments of the patchwork countryside.
Signs are posted in Gaelic only and Dingle is an example of a place where this is creating a huge political backlash as the locals voted in favour of amalgamating “Dingle” and the Gaelic version together for tourist dollar reasons. However, a politician outside of this chose to ignore the popular vote and posted all signs in Gaelic only. I’d hate to be in his shoes as this galvanized the locals in a “town-denied-democracy” mission.
We enjoyed our walk around, but decided to go pub hopping in Dublin even though Dingle is known for its pubs and Irish and bluegrass music. Came back, had dinner, played our usual and were in bed by 10.