A Green, Wet Peninsula (Part 2)

To pick up from where I left off last night, we checked into our hotel. The view from our hotel window is above. From there we drove back to the town of Dingle, which was a few miles from our hotel, and began our westward loop around the coast.

As we set out west from Dingle the rain, which had been on and off all day, began to let up and the misty fog that had shrouded the peninsula since we had arrived began to gradually lift. We proceeded around Dingle Harbor to the next protected bay, Ventry. There we stopped at a beach and circled around the bay to look at it from the other side. At this point it is a lot easier to just use pictures:

We then proceeded further west towards the eventual tip of the peninsula, stopping a few times along the way to appreciate the breathtaking scenery and wonderful ocean views, which got better and better as the visibility gradually improved. We stopped at Dunbeg Fort, a Stone Age archaeological site on the edge of a coastal cliff. We stopped at a few curves in the road, passed a hairpin turn where a rather substantial stream flowed over the roadway, and suffered through the nerve wracking experience of driving on the incredibly narrow roads that were pretty much directly on the edge of cliffs. At one bend in the road (at Slea Head) we saw a crucifix which seemed rather randomly placed, and no obvious reason for its location was given. We passed Ryan's Daughter, the westernmost point on the peninsula, and eventually proceeded back to our hotel for dinner.

As we went to bed, we could hear rain pounding outside and the wind howling across the hills of Dingle. We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and it was great.

The next morning we returned to Ryan's Daughter and hiked out through fields sprinkled with sheep to the westernmost point on the Dingle Peninsula. It was VERY windy on the summit of Ryan's Daughter, which is actually a slight hill in addition to a finger of land extending into the Atlantic Ocean. As we walked out to the small stone hut on the hill, it began to rain in a very light, misty, cold fashion, blown in from the ocean. This sort of rain persisted intermittently for the next few hours.

We then went about a mile north to hike out to the end of the next finger of the peninsula, which does not extend as far west and is a bit rockier and taller than Ryan's Daughter. From there we could see a good deal of the western coast of Dingle.

From there we completed our loop around the peninsula, passing Mount Brandon and the wonderful car-falling-over-cliff sign. We returned to Dingle town for lunch at around 1pm and then began the drive back to Cork city, passing through Inch and running into traffic due to Puck Fair (an event I know nothing about other than that it generates traffic in Killorglin). On the way home we listened to Cork's Gaelic football team beat Tyrone on RTE radio followed by Cork's hurling team losing to Kilkenny (also on RTE). Both were quite entertaining to listen to.

All in all, the Dingle peninsula is awesome. And to cap off my Dingle ramblings, here is a picture of Ryan's Daughter:

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An Daingean (Part 1)

I spent this weekend in County Kerry on the Dingle Peninsula with my dad, who was visiting me for the weekend on his way to work in Tipperary starting on Monday. It was a pretty incredible experience. The tip of the Dingle Peninsula is the furthest west point on mainland Ireland and the islands just off the peninsula are the westernmost points in all of Europe. While the weather wasn't perfect, we didn't mind seeing it in the mist and occasional rain because a little finger of land jutting out into the ocean seems more natural if it is exposed to the elements in a rather harsh manner (or maybe that's just me).

We left Cork city on Saturday morning in a rented Nissan Note armed with a map or two, a hotel reservation, and a change of clothes. The drive was to theoretically take around 2.5 hours and take us through Killarney and a variety of small towns in Cork and Kerry (including my personal favorite, Inch). We stopped in Killarney for lunch, but ran into very little traffic and ended up being on the road for just about 3 hours. Even before we arrived in Dingle town itself the trip became pretty interesting in terms of sightseeing and general entertainment. Below is a rather narrow street in Killarney. At that point in the journey we thought that this sort of street was incredibly narrow. We later learned that by comparison, this street isn't bad.


From Killarney we continued on to Killorglin, where we turned north briefly until we ran into the R561, which we took west through Inch and eventually towards Dingle. We made a brief stop at Inch point to look at the beach and coastline extending beyond the point and out into the ocean mists and rain of the western coast of Ireland. After about 3 hours in the car we reached Dingle town just as it began to absolutely pour. We then got directions to our hotel, which was in Ballyferriter (Baile an Fheirtéaraigh), a small town a few miles outside the town of Dingle where the primary spoken language is Irish. After checking in (at around 4pm) our actual exploration of the peninsula began.


More to come on the Dingle visit, most likely tomorrow.
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Grass Court Tennis

It wasn't exactly Centre Center Court at Wimbledon, but yesterday afternoon I played tennis on the grass courts at the Brookfield complex where I'm staying. The grass was quite long and looked like it had not been cut in a rather long time, one of the courts had fallen tree branches occupying one of the doubles alleys. In spite of the less than ideal condition the court was in, I was pretty excited to be able to play on the surface that inspired serving and volleying.

The courts themselves were riddled with divots and only about half of the lines were straight. The ground was so uneven that about every other ball resulted in a bad bounce. Normal rallying beyond 3-4 balls was incredibly difficult because one person would usually hit an inadvertent winner. After about 5 minutes I completely abandoned any attempt at hitting a topspin backhand because it was nearly impossible with the erratic bounces. My hitting partner and I both ended up looking like idiots a bunch of times swinging and missing at balls that didn't bounce as we expected them to. In spite of all the inconveniences, it was still really cool to see chalk fly whenever we hit a line.

After having played a set on grass, I now understand why the English developed serving and volleying and are more prone to using the continental grip. If the ball doesn't bounce on your side of the net it is a massive advantage because there is no chance of a bad bounce. Similarly, a continental grip on the forehand makes it easier to adjust to bad bounces.

After we were finished playing, the balls we had used were grass and dirt stained. If I hadn't just finished using them I would've guessed that they had been used by a dog owner as something for Fido to fetch for the past few weeks.
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Lawyers, Guns , Money?

Predictably, the day after I write about the sluggishness of the PPS number saga, the numbers arrive. We've given our paymasters the numbers and will hopefully be paid sometime in the next week or so. If all goes well there will be money in my Bank of Ireland account by the end of the week, which would be ideal because the current plan is to visit Dublin on Saturday and a working Irish ATM card that doesn't charge me any fee would be a godsend.

I've been watching a good deal of Wimbledon, which isn't difficult because its on when I get home from work. On Monday night we got to see Andy Murray come back from down 2 sets and a break to beat Gasquet in five sets, and earlier today we saw Nadal completely destroy him in less than two hours (I think). Evidently John McEnroe's commentary is also played in Ireland. His tennis commentary empire extends beyond the United States and to the BBC. I had no idea. I also didn't realize the extent of the pro-Murray hysteria among Wimbledon fans. Quite entertaining, in any case.

Speaking of Wimbledon, I discovered yesterday that the Brookfield complex (where I am staying) has two grass tennis courts. This is, of course, AWESOME. It's been raining ever since I discovered the courts themselves, but once it stops I'm heading down to play on the surface that inspired serving and volleying.
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