Killarney's Lakes So Blue

Ah, finals week. Well, actually this is the 2nd week that finals have been taking place. My Folklore one went rather well, and my next one is Tuesday for my sociology module called Inequality and Exclusion. I am considering it my most difficult one because the lecturer is a rather intellectual guy (you may not guess that when you first look at him because he has a very laid back wardrobe) but I studied quite a bit today, and I'm starting to feel better and better about it.

Anyway, it was probably last Wednesday that Liz Facebooked me and asked if I'd been to Killarney yet. It was perfect--I'd been hoping to make it to Killarney before I left because I'd always heard it was supposed to be one of the most beautiful parts of Ireland. Ellen and Julie went there the day I decided I should probably go to all of my classes...and it was part of my mom's tour, but she didn't make it there till the night before they left. :( We decided to just make a day trip out of it for this past Saturday.

Turns out that Kathleen and the other girls were planning on going that day also! It ended up just being her, Lily and Katie W. Colleen and Kaitlyn weren't feeling great that day. We headed out at about 10:30 that morning. It was only about a 2 hour bus ride--felt so much shorter than the trip to Dublin that we'd been making multiple times over the past couple of months to get to the airport. After eating lunch outside the bus station/shopping center, we headed out to Killarney National Park. Kathleen, Katie, and Lily rented bikes, but Liz and I hadn't brought much money with us and we are both the same in that we are trying to scrimp on as much as possible these last couple weeks. We left the other three girls at the rent-a-bike shop and headed out to the park. We thought we were making good time and were feeling pretty good until we saw the other girls zoom by us on their bicycles. After a little while we were like "I wonder where they're at now, while we were still wandering down the main road to the entrance of the park. We found it soon enough though. We spotted a tire swing and a little area that you could walk right out to the lake. The tire swing looked a little dilapidated and sketchy, but I put a little weight on it and it seemed to be ok. The lake was absolutely beautiful.


We continued along the walking path and came along Muckross Abbey. I really liked Hore Abbey in Cashel, but this one was cool because it had multiple levels, and it seemed like we just kept discovering more and more of it. One of the rooms was really dark and almost a little creepy, but it was really cool. For the most part, the doorways were really small. It didn't really matter for me, being a little person, but Liz who is pretty tall, had to duck to get through them all. Maybe there really are leprechauns in Ireland!


We circled the premises of the Abbey and found a trail that went behind it, and thought we had made some fascinating discovery that not that many people who came to the park saw, but after walking down it for a few minutes realized it wasn't that cool, so we turned around and just kept going along the main path of the park. We saw the Muckross House, which was a fancy looking Victorian looking house. I guess you can tour it, but we didn't know if it cost anything, so we just went back down to the lake, and then kept walking. I was hoping to see the Torc Waterfall, because many people recommended seeing it. We were afraid we wouldn't have enough time to walk to the waterfall and all the way back in to town. We kept going though, and made it there with plenty of time to spare! And oddly enough, when we got to the waterfall, Kathleen, Lily and Katie were there too! It was rather funny because Liz and I for most of the time were walking around and kept listing the reasons why we were glad we were walking and just trying to make it seem like we wished we hadn't just rented the bikes. In the end though, we still made it to the waterfall, so I didn't feel like we missed out on too much. Liz and I were proud of ourselves for saving ourselves some money and still seeing some cool things in the park. We took a few pictures at the waterfall, and then decided to just turn around and take our time getting back in to town so we could catch the last bus back to Limerick at 6 PM. We were both hungry and super thirsty and we went to the first Spar (European convenience store) we saw on the road. I got a lemonade and Liz got a 2 liter bottle of water! We walked for about another 15-20 minutes to the bus station. I had a really good panini at the coffee shop in the bus station. The other girls met up with us after returning their bikes and then we were off to Limerick. I'm really happy I made it to Killarney and got to have at least one more trip. 9 days till I leave. I'm excited to go home but sad to leave. I think the hard thing is knowing I can't just come back and visit whenever I feel like it. Sigh. What a wonderful, thrilling, challenging, enlightening semester this has been! I wouldn't trade it for anything!

And now for the rest of the Killarney/Torc Waterfall pictures!

Muckross House

Torc Waterfall