Ring of Kerry, Day 2

Woke up early, and headed down to breakfast.  Then headed back to Cahirsiveen where we stopped to see several historic sites:

The Old Abbey of the Holy Cross

The adjacent Protestant Church from the Penal time

The Daniel O'Connell Memorial Church (the only church in Ireland named after a lay person)

The Old Barracks

Then a drive across the single lane Castlequin bridge brought us back across the Valentia Bay.  The first stop on this side of the bay is Ballycarberry Castle which turned out to no longer be open to the public. We took photos from parking lot next to a dried out riverbed.

Leaving Ballycarberry, we headed on to the nearby stone forts (Cahergall and Leacanabuaile). We discovered a parking lot which we had missed the previous day, and parked the car.  We could see that the walk from the lot to Cahergall was farther than we wanted to hike in the current weather conditions, but there was a nearby hill between us and Leacanabuaile, so we weren't sure how far of a walk it would be.  We started on towards Leacanabuaile, and at the top of the hill had a great view of both forts, but could tell that the remaining walk was too far, too wet, too cold, too windy, and too steep.  We took some telephoto shots of each as well as a panoramic that included both, then headed back to car. Remembering the "NO CARS" sign from the previous day, we tried driving back to the same location, and discovered that the walk from there was just as bad, so we gave up on getting any closer to either stone fort.

That wrapped up everything that was planned for the day, but it was still early.  There was an area to the west of the main road of the Ring of Kerry that always left me wondering what's out there.  I asked Lisa if she wanted to head back to the hotel, or if she was up for an adventure.  She was willing to go find out, so we set the GPS to Ballinskelligs out on the southwest corner of the peninsula.  As we were zooming on the GPS to find the town, we discovered there are both a castle and priory/abbey in the area.  So, now we knew there'd actually be something to see after driving out there.

It was still cold, wet, and windy, and we didn't feel like walking across the beach to get to the castle, but enjoyed the view from the beach entrance.

The priory, on the other hand, we were able to park right next to.  The rain had stopped by the time we got there and the walls provided quite a bit of shelter from the cold wind.  We explored and took photos.

Leaving the Ballinskelligs area, I made an attempt to find a way to a coastal road around the peninsula.  Unfortunately I accidentally ended up on a narrow, single lane road, high on a cliff, that came to a dead end after passing several ruins. The views were amazing, and there was nobody else around, but we eventually had to turn around and retrace our path all the way back to our Ballyseede hotel.

Turned around at the sign. Entered Ballyseede into the GPS, and followed the GPS recommended route back to hotel. Needing to retrace our path added enough time that the sun set before getting back to hotel, but we managed to make it back without the headlights and without any incidents.

We had dinner at the hotel bar where we visited with a family from Cork and 2 ladies from Houston.