Trip to the Dingle Peninsula

We got a little adventurous and rented cars to drive out to this place called the Dingle Peninsula. It's the western most part of Ireland. The drive was a humbling experience. Driving on the left side of the road was not as easy as I thought it would be. Plus, the roads were so narrow, passing semi trucks and buses was pretty scary. Most of the cars here have standard transmissions, so doing it with my left hand was awkward to say the least. I kept pushing out a little when I would shift from 2nd to 3rd, so I would inadvertently drop it in to first. Luckily it was a new car and I don't have to pay for any transmission repairs. We obviously made it there and back without any casualites, and even though I got somewhat used to driving on the "wrong" side after a while, its not something I'd want to do with any regularity.

I went overboard on the pics and tried to choose the best ones for the blog, so don't complain. I could share them with anyone that wants the full 200.

Notice how narrow the roads are. We were on an interstate road for about 10 miles, then these country roads (and some even more narrow) for the next 100 miles. The two lanes go from dashed yellow to dashed yellow. Also check out how close to the bushes the car is. I think a bus was coming and we were trying to give it room to pass.Most of the cars here have these long scratches down the left side, the roads are so narrow it just cannot be helped.

One of the wider roads we encountered! Now for the scenery:

Dingle Town, I didn't quite get all of it here, but its not much larger than what you see.

Dingle Harbor, this is a big fishing community, but there weren't to many ships to see.Some old ship was wrecked and rusting, I thought it would add to the atmosphere of the city, what do you think?

A view of the harbor looking out
We left the city and drove around the perimeter of the peninsula, the views were spectacular! My photography skills do the scenery no justice.

Notice the sticker reflection in the widow. It was a nice reminder of what side of the road I should be on.



Our first beach encounter, albeit a small one. It is however secluded. I stripped down nude to run through the sand, but decided to spare you the picture. Cherish the mental image!

This display was on the side of the road in almost the western most tip of the peninsula.



Speaking of western most things, we stopped at the western most pub in Europe to have some pints (FYI: mine was water).

This beach was truly secluded, its small, but nonetheless a piece a Paradise. You can see where the sand is wet in the corner of the picture. A small waterfall runs down the cliff and empties in the sand. You can see the beach off in the distance, it's surrounded on all sides by rock cliffs.

Theo Hosemann had to get a superman jump in. He was still pretty excited about drinking at the western most pub.
Here we had to stop completely for the car to pass us.
This is a druid oratory that was built for the winter solstice. Its about 1200 years old at a place called Gallarus.