Bucket list – Rebekah Lyn Books

Reblogged August 12 from Rebekah Lyn’s Kitchen

Filed under: friends,history,travel — itsrebekahlyn @ 8:15 AM
Tags: Bucket List, Bunratty Castle, Cliffs of Moher, history, Hospitality, Laundry, Misadventures, Wild Atlantic Way

The drive from Kylemore to the town of Barna, just outside Galway City, took about an hour and we arrived at Furrymelia Cottage around 6:00 pm. Pauline, the B&B hostess, was waiting to greet us and hurried to put the kettle on. When she heard we hadn’t eaten dinner she even fixed us some sandwiches and pulled out some cookies to go with our tea.

The kitchen had a cozy seating area with a wood-burning stove for heat. We sat in here getting to know Pauline and found out she had been down in Killarney the previous day and had raced home that morning to make sure she was there for our arrival. Her husband had remained in Killarney for a work project so it ended up being just the three of us in the house for the whole stay.

When we decided to retire for the night, Pauline fixed us hot water bottles. What a wonderful touch! I drifted off with the warmth of that bottle easing the tightness in my lower back from so much walking.

Monday morning we arose and found a continental breakfast laid out for us. Pauline gets up early to go swimming before work but made sure we had a nice selection of options to start the day. There was fruit, yogurt, a couple different jams, bread, cereal, and of course a selection of teas. There was also a small plate with what looked like cubes of cheese.

*Do you see how the butter looked like cheese cubes?*

I had started the keto diet a couple of months before leaving on this trip and tried to keep close to it during the travels so I was excited to see the cheese. I put several cubes on my plate. When I ate the first one it didn’t taste like any cheese I’d had before and slowly it dawned on me that it was butter! Knowing we were going to have a long day I shrugged and ate the rest of my cubes thinking about the wonderful fat content they were providing. Plus, it was some of the best butter I’ve ever tasted.

The skies were cloudy again and I kept hoping it would clear up as we were headed to the Cliffs of Moher. We took the more scenic Wild Atlantic Way rather than the motorway. It provided some excellent views but boy was the road rough. I would like to drive the whole Wild Atlantic Way, though. It meanders through small villages and along beautiful coastline that could take an entire month to explore.

Seascape
Rocky landscape over the sea

We arrived at the Cliffs of Moher and while the sun was shining, there was still a gray haze in the air that made getting good pictures difficult. I’ve seen such vibrant pictures that I felt let down not being able to experience that vibrancy myself. There are pathways along the cliffs outside the official boundaries of the park, but they don’t have any safety features and people get blown off them by the whipping winds every year. We did venture out a few feet and Tricia wanted a picture near the edge, but I wasn’t about to risk going over the side. There was another pair of women out there. I offered to take their picture together but there was one sensible like me who didn’t want to risk it either.

Cliffs of Mohr
Tricia on the edge
Me on the safe side of the cliff.

From the Cliffs we headed back south to Bunratty Castle. We arrived in time for lunch and stopped in a pub called the Creamery Bar.

This was one of the disappointments for me. The service was terrible and the food was just meh. Later we found out we could have gone across the street to Durty Nelly‘s, one of the oldest pubs in Ireland.

Bunratty has been around since the 15th century and is starkly medieval. I don’t know how mothers navigated the narrow stairways carrying children. They are quite treacherous, especially when going down.

It was interesting to see how spartan and rustic some rooms were, but one, the private family dining room was almost elegant.

Bunratty and Ivy
Private Family Dining Room
Private Family Room
Main Hall Guard Quarters
Thatched Cottages

There is also a “village” set up around the castle, with more than 30 buildings representing village life. We didn’t have enough time to fully explore this area or partake in the medieval banquet that was being served that night, but I would recommend it if you are planning to visit the area.

After exploring Bunratty we visited the shops across the street. I finally found a sweater that I really loved, but this shop wanted me to spend 250 euros to get the free shipping and I couldn’t find enough other stuff to make that work so I put the sweater back and only purchased some linen items.

On the way back to the cottage we stopped at a Revolution Laundry. We’ve been traveling for a week now and were getting low on clothes. Like the stores, laundry mats all seem to close early in Ireland too. Revolution Laundries, though, are located in the parking lots of gas stations and consist of two washers and two dryers.

It was raining once again when we dragged our clothes out of the car and dumped them into the washer. Fortunately there is a small overhang that protects the machines from the weather. It took about 45 minutes for the clothes to wash, but when I went to put them in the dryer I noticed they were really wet, like the washer hadn’t run a spin cycle. My fingers were nearly frozen when I finished getting them all moved.

We waited 30 minutes on the dryer only to find the clothes were still soaking wet, as in we could wring water out of them. Tricia came out of the car to help me wring them out and again fingers were like ice when we started the machine for another 45 minutes.

I should mention we hadn’t eaten since lunch, probably six or seven hours earlier. Well, we had some candy from the convenience store but nerves were raw and this wasn’t the best experience. After that second run through the dryer the clothes were still very wet. They weren’t even warm so I don’t know what that dryer was doing. We were frustrated and tired so I suggested we just put them back in the laundry bag and figure something out at the cottage. I knew there was a clothesline out back so I figured we could just hang them out the next day.

While we were putting them in the bag, they were so heavy with water that the bag started to rip in half! We managed to get them all in and get the bag into the car without it completely tearing.

We must have looked like we were moving a body when we returned to the cottage well after dark. Pauline was already in bed so we quietly went about hanging the clothes around the bathroom to air dry as much as possible overnight. The heated towel rack proved an excellent place for socks and underwear to dry. Once we had covered every surface that could possibly allow the clothes to dry we fell into bed cold and exhausted. I really missed the hot water bottle that night.

I don’t know what it is about doing laundry while traveling, but I had a hard time with it years ago when another friend and I were in Paris. We’d been traveling for about a week then, too, and since we were staying at Disneyland Paris we figured that would be a good place to wash clothes. I had no idea a washing machine could be so very different overseas and all the instructions were in French. This was another late night and we were laughing so hard from pure exhaustion and the comedy of how something so simple could become so hard. We worried for a minute that we might disturb anyone who had a room nearby, but since no one came out to complain we just kept laughing. Sometimes that is the only way to deal with difficult situations.

Come back next week to find out if the clothes ever dried out.

Have you ever had a laundry fiasco while on the road? Please share it in the comments, otherwise I might have to believe I’m the only one with this challenge.

Reblogged from Rebekah Lyn’s Kitchen

Boxty, Bricin Restaurant, Bucket List, Charlie Chaplin, Dark Sky Reserve, Ireland, Killarney, Muckross Abbey, Ring of Kerry, Ross Castle, Sheep, Skellig Island

It was a little before noon when we left Liam and his birds behind, headed for the Ring of Kerry, a scenic drive around the Iveragh Peninsula. Tricia and I had a bit of a debate about whether to drive clockwise or counter-clockwise. Most travel guides and articles about the drive discuss these options, primarily as a means of avoiding the numerous tour buses that make this journey. I felt we were early enough in the year to be ahead of most tours and were unlikely to encounter many buses. Tricia was driving at the moment, and wanted to drive counter-clockwise, so I let her make that choice.

If you’re driving straight through, it’s a loop that probably takes about three hours. Stopping as often as we did, it took closer to six. The western side of the loop, takes in the towns of Killorglin, Glenbeigh, Cahersiveen, and Waterville. From this side you can take detours up to the Gap of Dunloe or to the Skellig Islands. We missed the signs for the Gap of Dunloe and the ferry service to the Skelligs wasn’t running yet. We did turn off the ring onto an even smaller road into Reenard Point, where we could see across to Valentia Island and daydream about getting out to the Skelligs.

Beach at Rossbeigh

The views of the coastline were stunning, even on this overcast and growing grayer by the hour day. We pulled over at probably every third turn off, never tiring of the rugged beauty. We had our first close up sightings of sheep during this drive, which made me nearly giddy and I’m not sure why. The largest pullout actually had a parking lot and is part of a dark sky reserve. I imagine it must be a beautiful place at night. With no cities for miles around, the sky must be filled with stars. There are a number of these reserve areas throughout County Kerry, but our entire trip we never had a night clear enough to see stars.

I think to do the ring properly, one would need to plan to stop for a night at a couple of points along the way, taking time to explore some of the quaint villages. In Cahersiveen, we toured the Old Barracks, built as a police station for the Royal Irish Constabulary in the 1870s to protect the Irish end of the transatlantic telegraph cable. There are exhibits inside on the Great Southern and Western Railway, The Life and Times of Daniel O’Connell, The Fenian Rising of 1867, The 1916 Rising and Monsignor Hugh O’ Flaherty. Also in this town, we could have visited Ballycarberry Castle ruins, the Daniel O’Connell Memorial Church, or taken in two stone forts. Some of the places we passed through didn’t offer such an abundance of sights, but it would have been nice to take a walk along the main street, peek in the shops, and try a bit of local fare.

The Old Barracks
View from the Old Barracks

By the time we reached the southern point of the peninsula, though, we were starting to feel pressured to make it to the end of the ring before the sun set. The eastern side of the peninsula is more forested and had an entirely different feel. I had wanted to shop in Kenmare to visit the lace shops. I was hoping to pick up something locally made as a gift for my mom. Unfortunately, it was close to 4pm by the time we made it to Kenmare and we’d learned most shops close at 5pm.

We did stop at the Avoca Shop and Cafe outside Kenmare. It was getting ready to close so we didn’t spend too much time here, and the prices were well outside our budget anyway. The best part about this stop were the sheep crossing the road, and one was kind enough to pause in front of the shop for me to snap a photo. Avoca sells mostly woolen goods, so this scene made us giggle. Were the sheep checking out the place their coats would one day be sold?

Ross Castle and Muckross Abbey were places I had wanted to visit and why I’d wanted to do the ring clockwise, then they would have been our first stop as opposed to our last. By the time we arrived they were no longer admitting guests. As the rain turned from a sprinkle to a more insistent drizzle, we hurried from the car to take some pictures of Ross Castle’s exterior then set off in search of dinner.

Before we’d left our Hawk Walk experience, we’d chatted with Liam about life in Killarney and asked for recommendations on things to do and places to eat. He told us his favorite for boxty was Bricín Restaurant. Boxty, he explained, is a potato pancake and it can be filled with seafood, venison, corned beef, and vegetables.

Bricín was wonderful! The interior is beautiful, it was warm and cozy against the chill, wet night, and the food was amazing. I had the venison boxty and for the life of me I can’t remember what Tricia had. I was so glad Liam had made this recommendation and told us about boxty, I may never have tried it if he hadn’t already explained to us what it was.

Feeling revived, we wandered down the street. Most non-dining establishments were closed, but a couple of tourist shops were still open. I’ve taken to collecting Christmas ornaments from the places I visit and so far this trip I hadn’t purchased a single one. I found a cute ball ornament and Tricia purchased some more wool goods, a blanket this time. She’s going to have to move to Alaska to use everything she ended up buying!

Coming up, we will hit the road again and experience every variation of wet weather imaginable.

Tag: Bucket list

Cliffs And Castles

Sheep!