Aleria's Adventures

To visit the Skelligs, we had to travel to County Kerry, known as The Kingdom. Ciarraige in Irish translates as Ciar's Kingdom, which has been its name since the 6th century. It's a 5-hour drive and we had to stay overnight as the boats leave from Portmagee early in the morning.  We departed from Mayo mid-morning. We made our usual potty stop in Tuam. We bought sandwiches there to have en route for lunch. We decided to stop and stretch our legs in the pretty village of Adare. The last time we stopped there was about 10 years ago. We took our lunch along to the park and sat watching people and pigeons while munching our way through delicious sandwiches. We haven't people watched in public in several years. We then decided to break up the trip a little more by walking around the town. There were quite a few people around and we even saw a wedding, which has been a rare occurrence through the pandemic years. It was interesting to note that Adare looked very different than we b...

Knightstown from the pontoons So what do you do when a gale is forecast? You assemble your bicycles for a land trip. The morning was relatively nice and there was no gale in evidence, although the forecast was clearly not great. So we got underway soon after breakfast along the coast road to check out Portmagee.

The Skelligs on approach to Dingle Bay Convenient pontoon and the oldest evidence of life on earth Selfie with Skelligs When transiting the west coast of Ireland, it is prudent to know where to hole up for the night should the weather turn sour, which it can do so very quickly. Lying off the Iveragh Peninsula in the southwest of County Kerry, Valentia Island (Dairhbre; the island of the oak forest) offers such refuge.  Just past the remarkable Skelligs rising up from the ocean’s depths to dizzying heights, this is a place that’s easy to tuck into, except in a NW gale. There are at least five things that distinguish Valentia Island as a stopover while transiting the West Coast of Ireland: Knightstown is unlike most Irish villages by the sea in that it appears more Victorian English in architectural style It is geologically distinct and has a famous fossil It has a rich place in modern history as the place where the transatlantic telegraph...