On our second day in Killarney, we had planned to ride a boat up through the lakes into the mountains and then take a jaunting car up over the Gap of Dunloe through Killarney National Park. When we woke up to a steady drenching rain, we made some new plans.
We started by touring the inside of Muckross House, a big 17th-century manor house that once belonged to an American family. It was later donated to the Irish government along with its huge mountain and lake estate, and became the beginning of Killarney National Park. Made me proud!
By then the rain had become an on-and-off drizzle, so we took a shorter ride in a jaunting car, up through the lakes and into the mountains.
This is a very cheesy picture, taken by the driver. The Oregonian prints a photo in each Sunday’s travel section of someone with a copy of it, taken somewhere in the world. So maybe we’ll be in the paper!
It was a bouncy, jiggly, shaking ride through incredible country.
Later, we walked through Ross’s Castle.
And this is Torc Waterfall:
It was gray and drizzly all day, but everytime we started to actually get wet, it would stop long enough to sort of dry out. We had come too far to let rain stop us, and we learned over and over on this trip what keeps Ireland so green. As the Irish often say, “No worries!”
