Gap of Dunloe

The start of the trail was just a few minutes drive from the farm where our B&B was. The parking was at Kate Kearney’s Cottage. :) As we started, we got a close look at a gorse bush:

note the thorns!

We were a little dismayed to find the entire “trail” was along a road…

… and that we would share it with “jaunting cars”…

… as well as modern cars. Ah well, more’s the adventure! As we strolled along, we met this old codger -

… as well as watched this youngster enjoy a snack -

(reminder - if you don’t see a video below, open this email in a browser window)

As we continued to climb, the sun came out…

… to give us some pretty nice views of where we’d been.

A pause in the story here, to show you an example of some our driving conditions. The picture below was on this road that we were walking, but it is like some of the two-way roads we’ve been on -

Resuming our regularly scheduled story…

… and yet another bridge -

(I liked both the reflection and the running water)

Coming down the other side of the Gap…

… we were treated to views of this valley, and passed by jaunting cars -

After hiking 7+ miles, we were glad we had arranged a ride back by boat (rather than repeat our journey back through the Gap to return to our car), on the lakes…

… and rivers of the Killarney National Park.

I’ll close with a cute video of how we feel at the end of a long hike -