The Cliffs of Moher and County Kerry

I’m going completely out of order with these posts but just work with me here. I go with what I feel most inspired by.

We started our Ireland trip with a night in Belfast, then to Sligo, then to Galway. From Galway we headed to County Kerry to see the Cliffs of Moher and then head to our cottage outside of Kenmare. We rose early because the drive from our hotel in Galway to the Cliffs was a few hours. We wanted to try to arrive at the Cliffs before it got too busy. As we were checking out of the hotel the woman at the desk told us to expect rain. Rain in Ireland, shocking right? But she said the sky looked like it was on fire which meant we’d have rain all day long. I am not Irish and I don’t live in Ireland, I figured I’d just believe her and leave it at that.

Road trips in Ireland are something else. By the time we were on our way to the Cliffs we were used to driving. We knew to expect twists and turns and sheep and rain and sun and everything in between. We took a few wrong turns on our way but it wasn’t too awful getting lost in Ireland. The lady at the hotel was correct about the rain though. It rained and rained. As we drove up the mountains, weaving around the turns (in my mind going too fast but we survived) the rain just kept coming. I was kind of laughing to myself and I just knew it would be a wet trip to the Cliffs. We finally found our way to the parking lot. The wind was ridiculous. We got out of the car and I swear we could have been swept away. I was trying to put my jacket on and I could barely get my arms into the holes, I thought my jacket was going to fly away and I’d be without a raincoat for the duration of the trip.

But..

What. A. View.

We were fighting against the elements up there. I’ve never felt wind like that before. I actually thought my contacts were going to fly right out of my eyes. The rain was stinging us as we were walking up the steps. I took some videos and posted to Instagram just so my friends could hear the wind (@tripwithbrit if you feel the need to check out my Instagram posts).

My wife survived the Cliffs of Moher and lived to tell about it.

We walked around a bit, it was damn near impossible for me to hold my camera steady so unfortunately I didn’t get many pictures and the ones I did get weren’t great shots. But we still had a good time. Because of the early times plus the weather we didn’t really come across too many other tourists so it felt like we had the place to ourselves.

From the Cliffs we made our way to Kenmare which took over 3 hours. We planned on grocery shopping in Kenmare then we had to text the owner of the cabin that we were close. We found Kenmare with no problems, stopped for groceries and headed to the cabin.

We had no idea the trip would take a really kind of shitty turn that day and into the night. We found the cabin without any real issues. But google maps didn’t do a good job of showing us just how far up into the mountains the cabin actually was. Neither did the couple we rented from. At certain points the only thing between our car and certain death was a tiny rickety fence. If we had known how treacherous the drive was up there we would not have rented it. The owners were lovely people. So sweet and helpful. They had chocolates and a card for us. They showed us around the cabin and then left. They live across the street from the cabin so it was nice knowing if we had any issues they were close.

The view from the cabin.

But, the cabin was not what we expected. The stove/oven was gas and the pilot light was out. And of course,  there were issues lighting it. As in, we couldn’t and had to get in our car and go across the street to have the owner help us. We finally got it to light so we could make dinner. But because we had so many issues with it we decided to make the pizza and the bread we bought from the store and just eat it as leftovers for the next few days. We settled in for the night, did some laundry, and relaxed. We had no phone service whatsoever. I couldn’t even connect to wifi calling. There was also no home phone. That made me feel a little nervous because if we had any issues we had no way to call out. Later in the evening I was walking around the cabin to just look around. They had framed photos all around. I picked one up, felt movement on my fingers and turned the frame over and what do you know. Spiders. A lot. Just hanging out on the frames, no big deal. My wife had the same issue near the router. Just so many bugs hanging out with us. Bugs caught in cobwebs throughout various areas of the house. Bugs stuck to the walls. Basically, bugs everywhere. We finally decided to go to bed. I hadn’t voiced my concerns to Angie and she didn’t say anything to me (yet). We went upstairs to go to bed. Bugs in the bedroom. The heat didn’t work in the bedroom. The temperatures that night were in the 40’s. Luckily there was a big thick comforter on the bed and we were able to go to sleep but neither one of us were very happy and I don’t know about her, but I didn’t sleep all that great that night.

We woke up the next morning and the plan was to leave the cottage early and spend all day in Kenmare. But I think we both woke up in pretty grumpy moods. She went to shower. There was basically no shower pressure (it was a trickle coming from the shower head) and either the water was scalding hot or ice cold. No in between. My wife has short hair, my hair is past the middle of my back. I was already annoyed at how long I’d have to spend in the shower trying to shampoo and condition my hair in a bathroom that wasn’t very clean with alternating hot and cold water. I asked my wife if it would be awful to leave the cabin and just get a hotel. I don’t rough it on vacation. I like a relatively bug-free place to sleep, with water pressure and a stove that worked properly and a place that is clean. She told me that was crazy, it would cost us too much money. I waited as long as I could to take a shower (in hopes there would miraculously be hot-but not scalding-water and water pressure). I went into the bathroom. Walked right back out to argue with my wife about a hotel and what do I see when I go back to the bedroom? My wife on her phone looking at hotels in the area. We found a cheap(ish) hotel in Killarney, booked it, and then I hightailed it to the shower. I don’t want to talk about that shower but we packed quickly, grabbed our gear and left that cabin and never looked back.

Quick stop in Killarney National Park on our way to our hotel.