The Road to Ballyferriter, (first days)

Glen's Ireland Travel Journal
Days 3 - 4

First days in Ballyferriter

13 July
We continue improvising because of our neglect -- our credit cards being shipped express to Ballyferriter, our next home.  We have a pleasant breakfast, and then I venture down the busy highway to catch a bus into downtown Limerick.  Everything is backwards, unsettling.  People are kind and helpful but my brain is slow.  I locate the Post / Western Union office, sign for and collect the Euros sent by Nancy.  It seems like a lot but they will spend quickly.  I ask directions but the accents and the assumptions on top of my disorientations and my anxieties -- my head is spinning.  I pause.  I see a map. 
I find the travel office.  Maps maps maps I find one, I find another.  I am accompanied out the door in the correct direction.  I have time.  I find a bookstore.  I find the right bus stop at the right time to travel on to Shannon Airport.  But from here I get no further.
Did the bus come and I not see it, was it late and I impatient?  No matter.  I have a phone.  It is unfamilar, but I have a phone.  The phone will not defeat me.  I will triumph.  I call the hotel.  Janet is in the lobby.  Small victories.  I get a taxi back to the hotel.  Success is in sight.
Hurriedly we complete our packing, say goodbyes and continue our lift to the airport.  This driver also is helpful, enjoyable.  He leaves us at Hertz and Janet waits with our luggage while I find one of the guys from yesterday.  (Only yesterday?? much has happened).  We pay the full insurance in cash (400 Euro) and -- a day late -- get the car.
I am grateful for the delay, for now I am rested and better oriented. 

Birdwatching near Dingle

For the next three weeks our car will be a Black Renault "Fluence" 4 door manual diesel.  As soon as possible we pull over to orient to the car.  It seems huge, fancy, with lots of electronics.  It is also 20 years newer than what we drive.
For now, only two things matter.

ONE: The steering wheel is on the right, the gearshift is on the left, and the roads are reversed.

TWO: the car has A/C.

We take the M7 (a "divided motorway"), through a tunnel under the Shannon River and then take the regional road through many towns towards Ballyferriter.
Stop at a cemetery to regroup, take some photos (lost -- sigh).
Another stop for a light meal -- cheese and fruit.

Roads are fast, narrow, winding.  Janet is reading the maps, watching the road.  Watch the curb, you need to shift, please not so fast, turn coming, stay to the left, we'd better pull over.  Now it sounds like backseat driving, but in these first hours I need all her advice.  It is all I can do to look in front, check the left mirror the right mirror, the lines, the clutch, continue.  Fun this is not, mild terror is more like it.

On the road to Annuscaul  (Panoramio photo)

We negotiate through towns, hit a few curbs, find most of our turns the first time.
In Tralee we drive in circles, find food and toilets, call our host -- two hours to go.
Winding narrow roads, we barely see the landscape except in a map and mirrors.

From An Spéice looking north shortly after our arrival

Am I in the lines?  Can I keep pace?  Any photos taken are now lost, but when we can look the views are breathtaking.  Here is someone else's Panoramio photo.

Dingle town is crazy to drive through.  We will be back in Dingle, much more than expected.  But for now, it is a final hurdle.
We find Ballyferriter and An Spéice. Close to 8 p.m., we are greeted by Alice Hannafin, our host, with tea and muffins.  This and our room and the view all are splendid.

 Home.

Janet sleeps soundly, and I sleep as I will each night: a split shift.  My early morning wakeful time is devoted to writing postcards or for the blog; the common room has a cozy corner with a reading lamp and is a perfect retreat.

14 July  (Sunday)
Our first B&B breakfast, Janet has bacon and eggs, (and will almost every day), I have "a mini Irish': fried egg, bacon, (Canadian style), three types of sausage, (two are called puddings, because cereal is in the blend), along with o.j., canned citrus, cereal, and several types of dark and tasty toasted bread.  My capacity is appalling.

Today we will stay nearby, recover.  We have a spare bed and onto it we disgorge brochures and maps, trinkets and cash, electronics and optics, to inventory our posessions and devine our purpose.  Midday we visit the museum.  Janet being an upcoming student, we are admitted free.  It is modest -- one room --  but includes remarkable artifacts, bits of history and geology.  Reflecting later, what struck me most was not the actual museum contents, but the bilingual nature of the display, with everything in English and Irish. 

 

From the West Kerry Museum webpage

We sit with the displays then buy sparkling water and move outside in the warm, relieved to be away from Limerick.  The little adjoining cafe includes an alluring well-stocked wall of books, but access is blocked by a large woman seated in the entry at the carrel of post cards, slowly spinning the display so that she may examine each and every card for sale, quite unaware of her position.  In time I cannot contain myself and excuse myself past her, and only then do she and the clerk consider her placement and move chair and cardrack out of the way.  The way clear, I draw Janet in, and she and I examine the selection.  For now Janet selects a chart of grammar rules in Irish; I temporarily resist a bilingual book on plants of the Dingle Peninsula, instead buy cards.

Across from the museum is the church which we also visit, and nearby is one of Bf's three pubs.
Murphy's.  It is busy, noisy with an important football game, the fish and chips and burger adequate, the mushroom soup wonderful.

Hardy fushia, Dingle Peninsula

Once home Janet nests and I venture further on foot to the western edge of town. I'm surprised by unexpected plant life more familiar than not. There are many well established foreign invaders -- dense hedgerows of hardy fushias flowering everywhere, and massive stands of New Zealand flax in full bloom have me dumbstruck.

Soon I will loose most all the photos (my photo journal) from our first few days in Bf.

Fushia hedge, Ballyferriter

But as I am ignorant of their future fate, I keep clicking, Janet also takes a few with her phone and these we still have.

In the evening another week-long guest arrives, another language student.  This begins a nice little friendship.