One Perfect Week in Ireland...Day 6

Killarney is magic.

MAGIC.

This is the Gap of Dunloe. Do it to it.

All of Day 6 is devoted to the Ring of Kerry. The Ring of Kerry is basically a scenic circular route around the Iveragh Peninsula that highlights historical and archaeological sites, with amazing viewpoints nearly at every turn. We took our time driving, stopping for a couple shorter hikes and quite literally went about chasing rainbows. Now, before I get further along into what WE did, I would be remiss if I failed to mention the fact that the Ring of Kerry is also an excellent jumping off point for Skellig Michael.

Look familiar?

If this is something that you want to do, you definitely need an extra day in this area.

Ok, now that I've got that covered, back to my story.

Something that I inadvertently started doing to Jorge found its inception on Day 6 of our Ireland vacation: tricking him into doing things he doesn't necessarily want to do. I really love hiking and I don't mind a challenge, whereas he is a little more cautious. Once we arrived in the National Park, we looked for a hike. They had different trails mapped out in blue (easy), yellow (moderate) and red (difficult). Jorge pointed at the yellow one and nodded his head, so I quickly memorized the starting point for the red trail and gently steered him that way. Thank you, Ireland, for not having trails clearly marked enough for him to know that I was putting him on the stairway to Hell. Because that's exactly what it was. About 15 minutes into our hike we were faced with a series of roughly cut boulders that shot straight up for what felt like 10 miles, with a ratty rope dangling to the side "just in case". We just kept trudging upwards as I nervously laughed at Jorge's exclamations that "If this is the medium trail, can you imagine the hard one, Jess?!". Yes, I can imagine the hard one very well in fact.

Once we completed our climb it was a relatively easy walk in what felt like a magic/enchanted forest.

Up until now we hadn't seen anyone else on the trail and felt like we had the entire park to ourselves. Shortly after this picture was taken, we heard whistling and noticed two walkers a short distance behind us. We moved off the path to let them pass us but little did we know they were some straight up leprechauns. As a gift to the clueless, honeymooning Americans, one of them told us a short Irish fairy tale and burst into spontaneous song.

Because this is the type of thing that happens in Ireland:



I don't really know how you can even begin to top something like that, but the Gap of Dunloe and the rest of our day seemed up to the task. I hate to act like everything is perfect when we are on vacation because that certainly isn't always the case, but this day was pretty close to it. We even got into a fender bender with another couple and we both sort of laughed and shrugged it off like YOLO.

At this point we literally turned off onto a grass path that was kind of sort of (maybe?) meant for cars in an attempt to chase down a double rainbow that had sprouted on the horizon.

Killarney bringing it in a major way.

Need to get caught up on Day 5? Follow along to Day 7!