Kenmare

We leave one town where the annual festival has just finished and arrive at the next where their annual festival is in full swing.

Along the way we had a little (mis)adventure.  We were travelling along the Ring of Kerry, a major tourist attraction.  Narrow roads and lots of big buses.   Our driver/guide Henry explained that our van was not technically a bus and he thought it would be OK for us to go into the flow of traffic (against the bus drivers' agreement of one way traffic on these picturesque peninsulas with lots of traffic).  We were only going 5 kms up the road and with a bit of luck wouldn't meet a big bus.  Wrong!  Those buses were on every corner which made for slow travel as we gave way to the bigger vehicles.  And then on a very tight corner over a tiny bridge we met a monster bus.  After much backing up and inching backwards and forwards, and waiting while the traffic behind us also backed up as much as possible, the bus passed on its way.  I can still see Henry ruffling his hair in agitation, I suspect he was majorly embarrassed and praying the other bus drivers would not report him to his boss.  I don't think he will be taking that short-cut again in a hurry!

We had a brief stop to enjoy the view at Ladies View where one of group spotted another little visitor amongst the ferns at the side of the road.  

  

The air was heavy up here and the wind very chilly, so we weren't tempted to stay too long.  The dry rain was at work again.

Normally the tour spends a night in Kenmare but Henry had found us alternative accommodation at the next town along the way, Glengarriff.  Kenmare was teaming with traffic (including many tractors angle parked like regular vehicles in the main street),  Irish travellers (gypsies) had set up a market selling mostly farm equipment, dodgy looking chain saws and the like.  The Annual Mountain Man Music Festival was in full swing.  The "boys" were in town, it was party time and, with a bit of luck, find a lady time.  There were a number of travellers parked up just out of town, just a few of the 200,000 in Ireland.  We had already had an experience whereby we had found an access to a car-park at a beach but there was a height restriction at the exit and no room to turn around and go out the entrance.  It took a heated argument with an Irishman who was in a bad mood (I'm being charitable he may just not have like tourist buses), before a couple of motorists helped us manoeuvre out of there.  These height restrictions are to keep out the gypsies so they can't set up camp.  Trust the Irish to install the exit before completing the entrance.

Anyway, we had time for a quick walk around the block to take in the festival sights before continuing on to find our beds for the night.  

We had just one more stop at a high point along the road.

 American Doug and our driver/guide Henry

 Carol, Doug and Sue