Day Twenty-two – Sunday, 3 June 2012

Castlegregory, Dingle Peninsular

Accommodation – The Castle B&B

Weather  - rain and overcast

Temperature – maximum 16 degrees

After only being up for ten minutes the district lost electricity.  Our B&B hostess coped admirably with a houseful and fortunately had gas as a backup.  Today I had smoked salmon and scrambled eggs……very delicious but very rich.  There seems to be an abundance of smoked salmon on offer at B&Bs.

The weather was miserable with a promise of clearing later in the day.  We’d planned to travel the route on the Dingle Peninsular and so we set off optimistically to explore this much-hyped Irish landscape.

We crossed the Connor Pass which is the highest (456m) in Ireland.  Cloud cover prevented any views and I took a photo of a lonely sheep sitting beside the road at the summit.  Visibility was down to a few metres and we travelled with our headlights on at 10am.  The road is very good, well-marked and only narrow in a few parts.

Our view at Connor Pass......

Dingle on the southern side of the peninsular is a vibrant sea port which is very busy.  After walking the main street we bought a newspaper and took refuge in a coffee shop waiting for the cloud cover to lift to give us a better chance of views for the remainder of the Slea Head circuit.

After an hour we wandered the marina area of Dingle and the crowds were pouring in.  In summer this place must be extremely busy!  The rain had stopped and it was starting to look a bit brighter so we commenced the 50km scenic route.

Dingle.....picture perfect!

We stopped at numerous places on the way and walked at Slea Head to the top of a grassy hill which gave us superb views of Blasket Island.  The island has been uninhabited since 1953 but still seems to have some houses in good condition still standing.  The weather was much clearer and there were some hardy surfers down in the bay.

Green green grass right down to the cliff edge.

The circuit drive was very pretty and as usual very green fields were dotted with sheep and stone houses.  The dry stone walls separating the fields are higgledy piggledy in places and straight as arrows in others and I wondered how long they had been there. 

Looking over to Blasket Island.

High on a hill was a lonely goat herd....apologies to Sound of Music!

After a few hours of taking in the views we made our way back into Dingle for an early meal.  My choice of Guinness Pie was very ordinary and I think it really was Irish stew with potato on top.  David’s Cajun salmon was much tastier.

It was over the Connor Pass once again to give it one more try!  This time the cloud had receded somewhat however if it had only lifted another 50 metres we would have seen forever.  We couldn’t complain as after 11am the day had remained dry, was much brighter and the views below cloud height were reasonably clear.  It could have been much worse……and you have to feel for those tourists who miss seeing this beautiful part of the world because of bad weather.

Missed it by this much.....Connor Pass where are you?