A day by the seaside

Today we decided on the recommendation of a taxi driver to visit Kinsale, a small seaside village 1 hour outside Cork.

University College Cork

It also has the reputation of being the gastronomic capital of Ireland- a bit like being the best brain sandwich on the plate!
Anyway we arrived and had lunch at the famous Fishy Fishy Restaurant, which was just fine. We took a post-prandial stroll around town

and then enbussed and back to Cork. A jolly time was had by all.

Tooling around in Cork(pronounced Cark)

Extravagant breakfast at our very comfortable digs and then we wander into town via St Finnbare's Cathedral.

We then peruse the English Market, a mecca of foodstuffs.

Having worked up an appetite we eat a traditional Irish lunch at the Burger Gourmet Bar.

7/10

We do some more general poking around and then we go to the fliks to watch "Everest"(in 2D). Aside:ascending Everest in a blizzard is a doddle compared to walking even the easiest day on the Kerry Way.
We then do a bit of a pub crawl in order to boost our serum Guinness levels.

Kerry to Cork(pronounced Cark)-easy enough mistake to make

We are picked up by our octogenerian taxi driver who drives us to Killarney where we are reunited with our suitcase and with lunch at a local public house.

Guinness stew and Irish stew

One of the good things about Ireland is that every second building in any town is a pub(an Irish pub at that) and they all serve Guinness.

This is the other form of entertainment in Ireland outside pubs

We hop on our bus to Cork(?Cark) and then catch a taxi to our luxury accommodation.
We are given a warm welcome by the front desk person who informs us they have no record of our reservation(that's bad); fortunately I have a printed copy of our reservation to show them(that's good); they study it and note a very small error on the form i.e. the booking is for 2016(that is very bad!LOL!); however, they find a modest room for us(that is very very good);the room has sweeping majestic views of the car park (that is tolerable). 

We eat at the hotel which has an excellent restaurant, which is what we need to restore our bodies ravaged by the excesses of the Kerry Way.

Kerry Way-Day 4-Glenbeigh to Cahiseveen

Not too tough today. We are getting a bit blase about the views (are we suffering from view overload?). Today's walk has many sea views and we encounter a number of guard sheep, guard cows and guard dogs.

View to Dingle Bay

Smoko

Friendly guard cow

The locals are very happy to engage us in long drawn out conversations which apparently are in some sort of English dialect.

Friendly local

We drag our now decrepit bodies into the CBD for quite a good meal.

Fish & Chips and mushy peas

Kerry Way-Day 5-Cahiseveen to Waterville-enough is enough

Today's walk starts off with a horrendous uphill scramble for about 2 hours. Ireland seems to be made up of a sponge like material called peat which turns to mush whenever it rains, which is most of the time(must add that we have had 4 days of rain free weather; apparently if this fine spell lasts another 2 days, a drought will be declared). Anyway we schlepp our way ever upwards in the howling wind continually sinking into peat bogs up to our ankles-reminiscent of the trenches on the Somme!

There is then the long descent

and lunch by the side of the road. We meet some friendly peat farmers

and after a few more kilometers we are are exhausted, myalgic and hypothermic. We manage to cadge a lift with a colorful local to Waterville, famous for its fabulous links golf course

and the fact that Charlie Chaplin once spent a week here. We wander into town to discover all the good restaurants are closed and eat at an average meal at the local hotel.