Blowing in the wind…

Another week exploring County Kerry and reach the Shannon, Ireland’s largest river, which estuary is already 100 km long. All this in rather extreme weather, which seems to demonstrate that the Wild Atlantic Way lives up to its name…

48 hours of rain...

So, it all started with 48 hours of non-stop rain, and clouds so low that we couldn’t even see the mountains around us (which didn’t exceed 400 m in altitude)… So to pass the time, we settled on Cromane Strand beach, just across from the famous Inch Strand, and protected by Rossbeigh Strand. Simply put, between the Kerry and Dingle peninsulas, two small inlets of land seem to close in on the sea, creating a large bay with calmer waters than the surrounding area.

On the Kerry side, the beach is a pebble beach (on the Inch side, it’s sand). The advantage is that some of these pebbles have been compacted so that cars can drive on them, and so it looks like a large, narrow stone dune, at the end of which we came to settle. We were comfortable in our little corner, all alone, our wheels in the water, or nearly, watching the rain drift from one side of the bay to the other, while a little further away, locals were happily swimming in the water, as if we were in the Caribbean and it was sunny… There’s even a sauna on this beach, just to warm up a little after getting out of the water… We preferred birdwatching to swimming, and we calmly waited for the storm to pass at the end of our pebble dune… This allowed us to see an otter, from Marvin’s window (in addition to a few wild geese, gulls, and some oystercatchers)…

Easter on the balcony…

It’s probably because they’re rare that people here tend to take full advantage of sunny days… When we arrived in Killarney this morning, it seemed to us that the town was still asleep (it was 10 a.m.), And indeed, everyone quickly got busy, and every corner of the town quickly filled with people enjoying the few rays of sunshine…

Same thing at Inch Beach, on the Dingle Peninsula, where the immense sandy beach was taken over by dozens of people strolling on the sand, one or two surfing, and many admiring the scenery from their cars parked on the beach, because the price to pay for some sun here, it seems, is wind!…

A quick visit to Dingle too, just as crowded (but mostly tourists this time). The town is charming, and the Dingle Ahoy! Fish & Chips food truck, voted 5th best fish & chips in Ireland, is definitely worth the detour!… But as crowds aren’t really our thing, we quickly left the city to settle down at the end of a road (literally since you can’t go further except at low tide and, the rest of the time, the road is cut off by the sea…) on the edge of a large lagoon that fills with the tide, with a few cows on one side, sheep on the other, and lots of birds resting there while waiting for the sea to rise…

A light breeze…

On this 22 April 2025, we set off on an expedition around the Dingle Peninsula. So, we won’t keep you in suspense, the place is spectacular, especially the tiny road that leads to Slea Head, at the end of the peninsula, barely wide enough for one and a half Marvins, and nestled on the side of a cliff!… With today’s weather and the raging ocean 50 meters below, we could easily have thought we were in a scene from the Apocalypse (incidentally, that’s where some scenes from Star Wars Episode VIII were filmed… The ones on the island where Luke Skywalker lives as a hermit… The island itself is actually Skelig Island, where we were a few days ago, but some scenes were filmed at Slea Head…🤓)!… In short, even the seagulls didn’t dare fly today! We caught two of them perched on the wall at the side of the road, making themselves small to avoid the raindrops, and looking sadly towards the sea, wondering whether or not they should take off when we approached (they finally decided not to move… 😜). The landscapes of Slea Head are exceptional, and the weather is no less impressive, with winds up to 75 km/h and pouring, horizontal rain!… Just by opening the window or getting off Marvin for 20 seconds for a photo, we were as soaked as if we’d just gotten out of the shower!… And that’s not to mention the “Wages of Fear” or “Extreme Drivers” atmosphere, because even if the roads around Dingle are a little better than the others, they’re still Irish roads, and trying to maintain a trajectory on a rutted road with a 75 km/h crosswind is… a sport in itself!… 😱

We still made it to Brandon Point, on the north shore (after making a long detour because the direct route, which goes over the famous Connor Pass, is prohibited to any vehicle over 2 tons and 1,80 m wide…). From the top of our promontory, we are buffeted by the wind, but when the clouds clear (we are confident they will!…) we’ll have a breathtaking view of the entire Brandon Bay, the small islands lying there, and the next head (Glenderry, which isn’t really a peninsula anymore). And with a bit of luck, to make up for the restless night, we might see a whale or two?…

A day at the beach…

Well, for the whales, we’ll have to come back… Not one! And yet, the rain eased off, and we even had a few moments of blue sky… before the next downpour… 🤨 In the early morning, the weather was milder, and as we were getting ready to leave, the sheep in the neighbouring field started bleating loudly and gathering behind the fence, right next to Marvin. At first, we wondered what we’d done to make them all come like that, and then we realised it wasn’t us who had that effect on them, but the shepherd who had just arrived with a big bag of pellets for their breakfast. So we stayed for a while, chatting with him while watching the sheep eat (and we learned, among other things, that most Irish sheep are only used for meat and not for wool… In fact, only merinos bring in enough money to be raised solely for their wool. This also explains why all the sheep we saw are covered in colourful paint, so their owners can recognise them… We wondered how they removed the paint to get the wool clean… Well, there you go… no need to…).

And since we had done a few extra kilometres yesterday to reach the north of the peninsula, today we did quite a bit less!… Just about twenty kilometres to settle on Fermoyle Beach, a huge sandy beach where you can drive for miles. We settled there, at a reasonable distance from the waves (we’re starting to become experts in tides… 😜) and, as the day went on, we shared our beach with a few dog walkers and a few surfers enjoying this beautiful day which, as the hours went by, turned out to be very sunny. And then, little by little, we were left alone on our large beach where we would spend the night. Benjamin made a new friend (a very nice 60-year-old surfer), who confirmed to him that there was no problem staying and sleeping on the beach as long as it didn’t rain too much. Otherwise, the sand becomes very soft and… you sink in. But hey, we’ll try to leave before the rain forecast for tomorrow…

The end of the peninsulas…

If there’s one thing that seems reliable in Ireland, it’s the weather forecasts… They’re so accurate that they indicate the probability of rain over the next few hours. And so far, they have been pretty good at it!… So, we were able to leave our idyllic beach spot before the first drops.

The Dingle Peninsula was the last peninsula for a while, since we’re now starting the more… vertical section of the coast (both on the map and in reality, since that’s where the highest cliffs are located). After a quick stop in Tralee (which at least has the merit of being the first Irish town we’ve visited that isn’t beautiful 😁), and after a short stroll around Fenit Harbour, its lighthouse, and its statue of Saint Brandon (a local saint who traveled as far as Iceland and the Faroe Islands), we followed the coast to settle down on Meenogahane Pier for the night, waiting out the day’s storm.

Then we headed to Ballylongford Castle (or what’s left of it), not without first taking a short walk on the pretty cliffs of Ballybunion. We are located on the banks of the huge estuary of the Shannon, the largest river in Ireland (and the British Islands in general), whose estuary alone is already more than 100km long (for comparison, that of the Gironde is only 75km)… The Shannon river basin covers 1/5 of Ireland (16.900 km2). The place where we are is one of its large stretches of sand (at low tide) where dozens of birds are busy picking up all the shrimps and other mollusks and bloodworms that are lying around, and which then transform into large stretches of water when the tide comes in. The special thing about today is that to get to where we are, we had to cross a small area which, in our opinion, should very quickly fill with water with the tide… So, we might have to wait for the tide to go out again before we can set off again… 😉

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At high tide, AS at low tide, LEAVE NO TRACE!

– Always travel on public ways and respect the signs.
– Limit noise and interfere as little as possible with wildlife.
– Respect the other users.
– Leave rocks, plants and other natural features as you found them and respect historic sites.
– Take your waste with you and throw it into the appropriate containers, in the nearest village.
– Do not camp inside protected areas and do not make any fires.