Dingle to Ballyferriter

When we left Dingle, rain was threatening, and by the time we were 10 minutes outside of town we put on our rain gear. For the next hour the rain intensified, and by the time we got to Ventry the wind was blowing and the rain coming down in sheets. And that was too bad because we  didn’t want to take the cameras out to capture our classic encounter with a herd of cows.

We came over a  rise in the narrow road we’d been walking down and there was a herd of about 20 cows walking toward us. By themselves. Now, this road was  barely more than one lane wide, with hedges on either side, so we were going to have to share this space. We were all surprised and not sure what to do. So all of us, cows and guys, stopped. The cows milled around, waiting for Marty and I to make the next move. We moved over to the right side, and walked forward. Reluctantly, the cows moved over, and started to walk past us.   With one exception. The last gal in back really didn’t want to move over. But after everyone else had gone ahead, and after staring us down for a minute, she walked around us and moved on. Several minutes later the farmer and his dog rode  by on an ATV, on the way to catch up with the herd to move them into a field down the way. Wish we’d been able to get a picture.

After a couple of hours the rain stopped, and we ultimately dried off. The walk took us through several mile of sheep fields around the edge of Slea Head, the mountain at the SW corner of he peninsula. Then, it was several miles up the Western coast of the peninsula with great views of the coastline and the Blasket Islands offshore. After passing Dunquin, and going over the saddle of another mountain, we wound up at  the  B&B farmhouse where we were staying for the night.

A long, 15 mile day.