Holly's Post

I did it, Holly! I made it out to the Dingle Peninsula! Now you can let me come back from Ireland, thank goodness. For everyone else: I made Holly a pinky promise back in December that I would absolutely not leave Ireland without visiting the Dingle Peninsula. Actually... I think that means I broke my promise because technically I went to Scotland first... but I hope I more than made up for it with my documentation. I'll let you be the judge, Holly. I still have three weeks to cancel my flight if you deem me unworthy of returning home (or three weeks to go back out and satisfy the Dingle terms). So allow me to give you a little rundown of our afternoon adventure so that you feel personally acquainted with the area before you retire there.

After a fair bit of driving through the countryside from Killarney,the road went straight into this beach (literally - you can see the cars quite a ways out because folks were free to drive out to where they pleased):

We then followed the road to the right and drove along the southern coast before veering inland for a bit, which gave us views like this:

It also gave me my first encounter with sheep holding up traffic. I know, I know, quite disappointing that it hadn't happened prior, but that must just be due to the use of buses and slightly more driven roads. But this poor fellow had the World's Worst border collie. He was bringing up a herd of lambs at the back of the flock and one of them suddenly darted off and started making a wide loop around to return to its home paddock. The man pointed at the lamb, signaled to the dog... and it just stood there and watched the lamb run by. Then others started to follow suit and the order collie actually shrank back behind its owner. When was the last time you saw a dog that was afraid of little lambs?! Eventually they all went scampering off back down the hill and the man had to go back and start all over again. But in good Irish fashion a handful of people had pulled over and gotten out to help the guy with his herding.

But we continued on our way and soon after arrived in the charming fishing village of Dingle.

I took plenty of pictures because I didn't want you to miss a single thing, Holly, don't worry. Though I hope you're not disappointed; after a very solemn debate we decided against going on the boat ride to visit Friendly Fungi the Dingle Dolphin. But there was a statue of him and some timber playmates so we still felt his joyful presence.

After lunch we drove further west to the tip of the peninsula, passing some fascinating and stunning sights along the way:

beehive huts - standing for over 4000 years (supposedly there are 414 in just a three mile stretch)

(okay, maybe not really 'fascinating' or 'stunning')

And, well, the rest of the drive was not terribly thrilling or noteworthy, but here's some proof that we circled around the tip of the peninsula:

The westernmost tip of the mainland... I couldn't resist going down there.

So what's the verdict? Do you still want to move here so you can introduce yourself as "Holly of Dingle"?