When we woke the sky was mostly blue with only a little broken cloud. We took a photo as we so often do, but the photo we took was from the front of the hostel, the scene at the back was not a pretty sight. Then we took to our heels along the R road to Adrigole.
From Adrigole we took the winding road up to Healy Pass, the most magnificent pass I have ever climbed. The road twists this way and that but always the gradient is sensible. There is a bridge at the summit and you pass almost directly under it when you are still 800m by road from it, (and 100m below it). You are able to see the view in every direction as you climb without any twisting of your head, the man who designed it was a genius. There is a small shop at the summit where ice creams are available.
The view to the north from here is breathtaking, with Kenmare Bay below and MacGillycuddy's Reeks on the horizon.
The sun continued to shine as we made our descent to the sea, we stopped for a pint of Guinness at a harbour pub near Bunaw.
Bert almost fell asleep on the harbour wall, perhaps he did? The water was lapping gently against the harbour wall, the sun was burning down, the Guinness was cool and there was not a breath of wind. Just look at the photo.
Alan and I sent text messages to Tucker describing the scene, Tucker was at work at the time, some would call this cruel.
It was nearly 15:00 when we left so Bert and Alan put on a burst of speed and we reached Kenmare by 16:10. This was a busy place full of tourists, Alan and Trevor did the shopping while Bert and I lounged in a park near the centre of town. Now every one has seen signs which say 'No Dumping', they're usually in lay-bys or down side roads. Well for the first time ever, I saw a 'No Dumping' sign fixed to the side of the public toilets, well it made me laugh.
Once the shopping was complete we resumed our journey exploring the great N71 and made the long ascent up to Moll's Gap. Spectacular scenery and far below us in the valley we could see the road to the hostel. It took much longer than I expected to get down to the valley floor, partly due to the almost non existent road surface.
After going down so far we then of course had to climb back up in the Black Valley to reach the beautiful hostel. We were completely surrounded on all four sides by mountains, at night it was totally quiet and still.
Trevor and Alan went daft with the cooking tonight. There was cooked cold rice which was pressed in to a bowl then turned out on a plate with fancy stuff on top.. It was a cross between Nouvelle Cuisine and Cordon Bleu cooking, magnificent!
