Ring of Kerry Bus Tour - day trips part three

My amazing friend Kate came to visit this week and we headed off with Paddywagon tours again to spend the day checking out the Ring of Kerry - that famous drive around the Iveragh Peninsula.
The weather forecast was very uninspiring but we went along anyway, hoping that we would be able to drive through pockets of bad weather and get a little bit of clear sky at least some of the time. This did work a little bit, as it was reasonably nice at one of the first main stops, looking out over Dingle Bay. The view was great, and you could see across to the mountains of Dingle Peninsula and the Inch Strand beach that I had stopped at on the previous tour.

 

There was some good views along the coast after that, before stopping at a random restaurant with a thatched roof for lunch.

Lots of purple heather

We went past the birthplace, statue, and memorial church of a man called Daniel O'Connell, who is an extremely important political figure here from the early 19th century. So important that there is an O'Connell Street in basically every single town in Ireland. He was the first Irishman and Catholic man to sit in Westminster Parliament, and helped to split Ireland from the UK. I was mainly interested as my cousin has the same name so it was cool to get some background on his family name.

Birthplace of Daniel O'Connell

Memorial Church of Daniel O'Connell

The weather gave up after that point unfortunately, and was rainy, windy, misty and generally at it's worst all the way around the tip of the peninsula where some of the best coastal views would have been. The term 'pea soup' fitted nicely - you could not even see the ocean; the clouds and mist was so low. The driver said of one lookout point that 'this is one of the best view points in the whole of Ireland - but maybe not today.' It sucks but that's just my luck with all of the more important sightseeing trips I've had...

By the time we got back towards the Killarney National Park and stopped at 'Ladies View,' overlooking the Killarney Lakes, it was late enough in the afternoon for the weather to have started lifting - so we could at least see the lakes through the cloud cover. The lookout got it's name after Queen Victoria was in the area and she sent her ladies in waiting to see if it was worth her time to go there.

A random bagpiper braving the weather to play for the tour bus passengers. I just found it funny that Kate came all the way from Scotland to end up looking over some lakes with bagpipes playing in the background...

The last stop was the pretty Torc Waterfall, before heading back to Killarney and then Cork. At this point the road was so twisty and narrow that it's basically an unwritten rule that buses only drive around the ring of Kerry anti-clockwise, going from Killarney to Killorglin then Waterville, Sneem and back to Killarney. There is literally no room for two buses to pass each other on this part of the road otherwise. Our driver said he had been talking to a NZ bus driver that just could not believe that buses were driven down this road, and after 25 years of NZ roads he wouldn't even attempt this one! A little bit of Irish humour was also pointed out when we passed a road sign for a 100km speed limit...

 

Overall it wasn't too bad a trip. We saw a good chunk of stuff despite the dismal weather, and I know which points I'd like to go back to another day to try my luck with the weather again. I'll also never again think of the song 'Sexy and I know it' by LMFAO in quite the same way, thanks to an...interesting... karaoke version from our driver Mike.

Also, pretty sure this is the third tour I've gone on this year with a guide called Mike. Conspiracy? In the job description? Or just random coincidence?