Ireland Day 10: Skelligs!

Monday was probably my favorite day of the whole trip. It was also long and busy, so this is your warning that I cannot be held responsible for the length of this post! We also took a llllllot of pictures, so well, um...good luck getting through I guess. ;) I'll understand if you skim.

We started out early, after having a giant breakfast at our B&B of course, and drove down to what is called the "Ring of Kerry," which is a scenic route along the Kerry peninsula (very popular with the tourist buses).

We saw lots of nice scenery along the way, but the main point of our journey was to get to the little town of Portmagee, where we would hop aboard a boat headed to the Skellig Islands.

The what Islands, you are asking? The Skelligs! Skellig Michael to be specific. I had heard amazing things about Skellig Michael, so I made sure to include it on our itinerary, even though it did take up almost an entire day. Skellig Michael is this rocky, jutty-up island off the coast of Ireland where some monks decided to build a monastery back in the 7th century. They picked the Skelligs because they were so inhospitable, and the monks felt that the harder their lives were, the closer they'd be to God. So they carved stairs out of the rock face and built these little stone beehive huts on the very top and lived up there, in total isolation, for centuries!



















It is very remote, and they only allow a certain number of boats full of tourists to dock there each day, so we had to reserve our spots in advance. When we got to Portmagee, we found a little dock with several smallish speed boats. The tide was very low at this point, so we had to climb down a long ladder to get in (and then clamber over into the next boat since ours wasn't the one closest to the dock), which felt fairly adventurous.

The boat ride out was about an hour long, but it was pleasant with lots of green Irish coastline to watch as we went by. Kevin and I were sitting facing the back of the boat, listening to an audiobook on the mp3 player (we each got one earbud). Unfortunately, this meant that we didn't see the whale which apparently jumped out of the ocean at one point while we were on the boat. We didn't notice the commotion until it was gone. A lady tapped me on the shoulder and said, "It's whales!" but at first I thought she meant, "It's Wales!" and I was really confused, because that would be a VERY far distance to have traveled in an hour!

Anyways, soon we could see the twin rocks jutting out of the sea. The bigger one was where we were headed--Skellig Michael. But the smaller one was quite impressive also (it's just called Little Skellig). It is a bird nesting site, and is totally COVERED in birds. In fact, it was quite a shock when I suddenly realized as we got closer that all that white stuff covering the peaks were millions of birds. Well, I guess not millions. Tens of thousands. But you get the point.


When we arrived at the island, we had to ascend about 750 feet to get to monastery site. The beginning part was paved switchbacks (paved recently for tourists of course), but after a little while, we started climbing up the steps that the monks had carved out of the rock. It was quite the workout, actually. We did stop to take some pictures of some neat birds, including several puffins. We tried to climb fast so that we would beat the other tourists to the top. Unfortunately, another group had docked before us, so we didn't beat *all* of them up there. But at least there weren't too many people around when we first arrived at the ruin site.


The monastery buildings were incredible--extremely well preserved. It was just amazing to consider what it must have been like living up there. The stone huts are made out of dry stone, which (I can't remember if I've explained before) means they are laid on top of each other without mortar. Surprisingly, this made them extremely resilient to shifts in the earth, etc. and helped preserved them fully intact. In contrast, there was a much newer stone structure which had once been a church up there as well, but it had been made with mortar, and it was in ruins.

We got to spend an hour or two poking around the ruins and eating some of the (many) cookies we still had from our dinner the day before (although we had to eat the food away from the ruins so as to not encourage the birds to land--and poop--on the ruins. The bird poop is serious business, as I was soon to find out.) We were glad to have had those, because we didn't have time to buy sandwiches before we got on the boat as was the original plan (note to self: always double driving time estimates when in Ireland).




Then, we hopped back on the boat and headed off again--but not before one of the puffins pooped RIGHT on my head. GROSS!! I was enjoying the ruins so much, though, that it didn't phase me too much.

Once we arrived back to Portmagee, we had a nice late lunch at a little pastry shop--they also served sandwiches and soups. I had some sort of cheesy crab soup thing. I forget what it was called, but it was awesome. And it came with AMAZING brown bread. Kevin had the chicken salad which he also really liked. Of course, I had to have a pastry for dessert too.


Then, we drove the rest away around the Ring of Kerry, stopping along the way a couple of times to take pictures of the scenery and to check out a drystone ring fort (also made without mortar, like the monks' "beehives"),











and then ending at Killarney National Park. We saw a few quick sights such as "Ladies' View" overlooking the lakes (a bit of a letdown, probably mostly because the sky was overcast), the Torc Waterfall (and a bit of the forest surrounding it--I swear everything in the forest was glowing green), and the outside of Ross castle on the lakes, where I snapped one of my favorite pics from our trip. We would have stopped to see the gardens at Muckross house, but there was a sign warning that they closed the gates at exactly 7 and then charged you like $100 to get out after the gates were closed. It was only 10 minutes before 7, so we didn't have time.

We then drove up to a mountain pass in the National Park called the Gap of Dunloe. During the day it is filled with hikers and carriages (they call them pony and traps), but by now it was almost empty of other people. We had planned to hike up the pass for an hour or two, but we were still tired from our Skellig adventure, and the road was actually pretty good, so we just drove it! (Don't worry--cars are allowed; it's just too busy during the day usually to be able to drive up there). It was really beautiful, especially since by this time the sky had cleared up some and the sun was going down, creating vibrant colors and long shadows.

After we drove back down out of the pass, we had to make our way back to Camp. Unfortunately, we had some navigational troubles (you would not believe how windy and unmarked those roads are! Even with a compass, I got us fairly lost). I was rather stressed out, I'm afraid.

Luckily, Kevin wasn't and we made it back just fine--even if it was 11pm by then! But, the sun was just going down, so all was well. We were beat! But we were back, having had an Irishly fantastic adventure.