Killarney - A Stone, a Show and a Horse called Henry.

Awake yet again at 3:30! Managed to get a bit more sleep before we headed down for breakfast. This lovely hotel is on the water (hence the name Waters Edge Hotel...) and this was the view as we ate breakfast.

Went for a walk along the foreshore, it's such a beautiful town.

They love John F Kennedy here - there are these sorts of things everywhere.

The morning ferry, full of workers...

Check out and off, heading out of town, passing the church on the way...

And we're off... Look at that sky - it's a magnificent day in Ireland!

Our first major activity today ended like this...

To get to this point, we arrived at Blarney Castle and headed through the magnificent grounds towards the castle, as seen here in the distance.

It's a fairly imposing figure as you get close to it...

According to our little booklet, the castle was built in the tenth century. To kiss the Blarney Stone gives the kisser the gift of eloquence - 

There is a stone there

That whoever kisses

Oh! He never misses

To grow eloquent.

We start the climb up to the top - this involves very uneven stone steps that get narrower and narrower as you go up - the last little section is quite claustrophobic.

Once you get to the top, you make your way over to the stone itself, then you have to lay down backwards and hang over the end of the wall - quite a long way - to kiss the thing.

We arrived fairly early and there were a few people about, apparently the later in the day it gets, the more people there are and the queue to actually kiss the stone backs right back and can go down the narrow stairs so if you have claustrophobia, you're stuck in a very uncomfortable place for a while!

Not crowded when we got there. Got up to it, there are two guys there - one to direct you and hold on to you and the other to take the photo. I got to it, lay down - quite disconcerting shuffling yourself backwards over a wall - the photographer says, "Hang on, I have to get something." As I'm hanging over the end of the wall! 

Hilarious! Then the backwards reach and hang down and kiss the thing. This thing gives you the gift of the gab, I had said to Alison, "Me, might not need it so much - you, kiss the thing."

It got to her turn and she was quite rattled by the narrowing staircase she had just had to climb and found this whole thing quite disturbing. I did yell at her to kiss it, coz you have to do it! "Kiss it!" She had a bit of a meltdown afterwards...

..but I think she was glad she did it. Hilarious!!

We had to wait a while to calm nerves before heading down...

..for a much needed cuppa. 

And some random shots while up there...

After a soothing coffee and biscuit, we headed off down one of the various walks around the beautiful grounds - we only had time for one and went with the Forest Trail route. Here are the Witches Kitchen, Druids Cave and Waterfall.

Out through the gift shop and onwards to Killarney, a hop, skip and 2-hour drive away. We think we have a car ghost as the radio will randomly turn itself on or if it is on, will randomly change channels. It's quite weird, the weirdest thing is that the ghost seems to want to listen to talkback radio and today, showed an interest in the upcoming budget.

We arrived in Killarney a bit too early for our room to be ready so we went for a wander to find some lunch. Cute town and much larger than it first appears to be.

While Alison finished her next coffee, I went around to check our jaunting car ride - which is Irish for horse and cart ride... We quickly went to check in to our hotel and then headed back to hop up behind Henry (horse) and Rob (driver).

It's like Henry is posing for us...

We set off and into the national park - so beautiful.

Rob told us stories about he places we were seeing - such as "See that big beech tree over there, and see that little one over there, that's a son of a beech..."

He also told of the mountain - largest in Ireland, and the lake with all the little islands, including Honeymoon Island, which is so small, only two people can stand on it - no room for a mother-in-law.

There was a leprechaun's swimming pool, lots of cows and deer. The cows are not for dairy or meat, just to maintain the species.

It was a bit magical, riding through.

We came to Ross Castle, which was originally a home for the O'Donoghue family but Oliver Cromwell decided he wanted the castle and so he overthrew it and killed the family. 

We had a short stop here to have a look around.

Then back on the cart and trotted back. Lovely, lovely ride.

Back to the hotel to rest up before dinner and heading out to see Celtic Steps - a night of Irish music, dance and song.

It was free seating so we sat right up the front. Lots of people there - busloads of American and Canadian tourists, plus Germans, Dutch and so on, a smattering of Australians.

The show started with a girl singing a beautiful Irish lilting song...

..before the rest of the band came on and then the dancers - three girls and two guys, dancing Irish style but with the most intricate and fast footwork, it was amazing and fabulous.

One of the guys, Darragh, was the MC and he introduced the numbers, with a bit of information on the performer and a bit of information on the style of song or dance. The band consisted of a keyboard player, Darragh on bodhran, a guy on the button accordion, Roisin (the singer) on violin and the MD and creator, Sean, on guitar and banjo. They each had a solo moment.

The dancers have a total of 17 world titles between them and were amazing - particularly the boy who had seven titles! He did a solo a capella that was astounding. Apparently in this type of dance, dancer jump and tap their feet up to three times - this boy did seven taps in a jump! Darragh also joined in the dancing - there were a few dance-offs between the boys...

There was lots of chatter with the audience, lots of banter between them all, and lots of fantastic music, beautiful singing and incredible dancing.

Here's Darragh, with his bodhran, and then there's a Celtic polka...

Just a great, great night and quintessential Ireland!