On the way, we saw an abundance of this signage pointing us to the 'Most Beautiful Cliffs in Kerry'. At one point, it greeted us every few minutes in this vast landscape.
The weather made a turnaround and was nice and sunny. The view of the sloping cliffs covered in blankets of the freshest green was inspiring.
As you can already tell, this view was one of my favourites. If only I could magically will myself back to this place right now. :)
We followed the signage as I assume all unsuspecting tourists would and came to a turning on the left. After turning in, we immediately saw fancy banners about seeing puffins and a bee village. A man and a woman were standing about 100m away stopping cars. The people in the car in front of us were winding down the windows and we soon found out why. The woman leaned in towards the window and told my husband we needed to pay 4 Euros per person to enter the premises and that we could use the ticket to purchase anything at their gift shop worth £2.50.
Out here in the middle of all this gorgeous nature, she was sounding all cold and rehearsed. Because of the shock of the whole setup and being high from the expectations given by the many signs, I was taken aback as my guard was down. I just didn't expect to encounter this out here. On a busy touristy street in China or Batu Ferringhi, maybe. My husband immediately said sternly to the pushy woman, 'What? Never mind then. We're running low on our budget'. She shot back, 'Ok, ok, how about 8 Euros for the whole car?' The whole thing was sounding more and more like a scam. My husband remained focused, God bless him and said a simple 'No Thanks'. I would have been pressured into forking out the money just because we had already turned in and there were more cars turning in behind us. Very shrewd setup to only ask for payment about 100-200m away from the turning.
Our instincts were that there were so many amazing views of cliffs on the way just driving up to this point. We were sure we did not need to enter this shop/cafe/private looking point whatever you want to call it. The sneaky thing was that the signs were all over the route and we thought they were the usual signs put up by the council or government to show people the viewpoints. It turns out the owners of this place went to so much trouble to lure tourists and arbitrarily charging for entrance fees. The fact that the fees could be bargained over reeks of tourist scam.
P.S: I ran a quick Google check immediately afterwards using the phrase 'most spectacular cliffs in Kerry' or something like that and saw tons of bad reviews on Tripadvisor even by locals who agreed that it was a scam/not worth the money. Most of them recommended saving the money and going on to Valentia Island which charged 5 Euros per car via an unmanned parking machine.
The whole experience, albeit a short one, left a sour taste which was thankfully sweetened up shortly by going across a bridge to Valentia Island.
We started our tour of the sights at Fogher Cliffs.
The walk out towards the cliffs was accompanied by these cute stories. (Clickable if you want to read about Irish mythology)
For bird-watching.
The cliffs.
Our next stop was Geokaun Mountain, the highest point of Valentia Island. The trusty rental car trudged upwards on first gear the entire way pulling the weight of four people. :) Thankfully we made it up without any smoke from the engine. I think my husband deserves a pat on the back for navigating us safely.
Once up there, you could look 360 degrees around at the island, the Dingle Peninsula and more!
Pictures simply do no justice (I can't say this enough on this blog). We watched the moving shadows over the land below and the sun bringing parts of them to life.
Teleportation on my mind.
After taking all that in to the best of our ability, we headed back towards Kenmare. The sky was bright and blue where we were and on the way we saw giant windmills on a hill next to us. It was quite terrifying to be honest as we've never seen windmills so close up before. A very bright rainbow suddenly appeared some distance away where it was getting cloudy.
It was amazing to behold. If I looked behind us, I would see the bright blue sky and green trees but when I turned to the front, I would see the storm clouds brewing and the dark grey sky. As such, the rainbow was an intensely a bright one.
The colours were mesmerising and soon a double rainbow emerged! We were going to drive through all that rain towards the dark mountains. Such an incredible feeling.
What a beautiful reminder of God and His creation. We stopped and got out to squeal in delight and gasp in awe of this magnificent sight. They were so bright at one point it looked like streaks of highlighters across the sky.
You can see them all: Michael Jackson Keluar Hutan Bawa Ibu Unta! :)
You can see them all: Michael Jackson Keluar Hutan Bawa Ibu Unta! :)
We continued on down the beautiful road.
My husband loved Ballaghbeama Gap so much that he decided to take the route again, this time from another end.
A panoramic shot of the gap to end our adventures in Ireland. (*Clickable*)
1 comment:
nice pics
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