Week Three and a Trip out of Dublin

Thursday, June 13 

I woke up feeling almost completely better on Thursday and had an easy day at work again. I’d been having some trouble with my shower draining, and I put in a maintenance request yesterday to fix it. The request form had said it was going to take up to 5 days to fix. Having lived in a dorm last year, I was fully expecting it to take at least a week, but I was pleasantly surprised when it was fixed in one day. The staff at Beckett house have been so incredibly welcoming, I’m glad to have them here for us. 

I spent the evening finalizing plans for this weekend. We still couldn’t find somewhere to stay for more than one night, so we changed our plans to visit Dingle as well as Killarney. It felt a little more last minute than I would’ve liked, but traveling with a smaller group of friends is easier to coordinate. Our group had shrunk from about six to just me and one of my roommates. We finalized our plans to stay in Killarney Friday night and Dingle Saturday night. We’re staying in hostels, which I never have before. I’m a little nervous about that but I’m more confident because I'm not alone.

Friday, June 14 

I spent Friday morning packing, and at 1 we caught the train to Mallow before grabbing our connection to Killarney. The public transport here isn’t too hard to figure out once you've done it once, but it’s confusing the first time you’re on it. I’m so glad I had a friend there with me. We checked into our hostel first thing when we got to Killarney. We stayed at the Black Sheep Hostel. We booked an all-women’s room, and the hostel provided breakfast in the morning, as well as having multiple bathrooms for us all to use. It was such a good place to stay, and a great first experience in a hostel.

We visited the Killarney National Park after grabbing dinner at a local pub. We walked 30 minutes there, and did some hiking in the park. One of the places we stopped at was Ross Castle. I didn’t realize until we were there, but I had been at Ross Castle when I was in Ireland 5 years ago! I was able to explore more of the area around it this time. I think the first time we went, we saw the castle and had to move on with our tour. This time, we did some hiking on one of the trails around the castle, got ice cream, then headed back to our hostel for bed.  

Saturday, June 15 

We woke up early Saturday morning to catch the hop-on hop-off bus tour. We didn’t want to hire a taxi or Uber and couldn’t rent a car, so at only 15 euro, it was the best option to get around Killarney National Park. Seeing as we were the only people on the earliest tour, it was a private ride on a double-decker bus! We stopped first at the Torc Waterfall which I also realized I had been at when I was in Ireland before. We had an hour to spend at the waterfall, but it was only a five-minute walk from where we were dropped off. We spent time hiking around the area. There were loads of beautiful purple flowers around. The whole area was stunning. After Torc Waterfall, we headed to Muckross House. We also only had an hour here, and we didn’t have tickets to get inside, so we walked around outside on the grounds. It started raining at this point, but under the trees we stayed mostly dry. We hopped onto our bus that took us back into town. We tried to go into the cathedral but there was a wedding happening! It was our first near-wedding crash of the day. We grabbed lunch in Killarney, looked at some souvenir shops (I got earrings!) and got on our bus to Dingle. 

In Dingle, we stopped by our hostel to drop off our bags before going on another hike. This time we stayed at Lovett’s Hostel. This hostel was also very nice. We didn’t have the privilege of an all-women's room here though. We had heard that the lighthouse was a 30-minute walk (it wasn’t), so, we set out for the Dingle lighthouse, but turned back when we encountered our second wedding of the day. The trail we were on was part of their backdrop for photos. We didn’t want to photobomb, so we turned around for dinner before heading back to see if they had finished taking photos. We wanted to watch the sunset on the beach near the lighthouse. On our walk there, we encountered a herd of cows that were on our path. They were so close to us; we could have pet them. We were too scared to, but we enjoyed the sunset by the lighthouse and made our way back to the hostel for our last night out of Dublin. 

Sunday, June 16 

We woke up early again on Sunday morning to get breakfast before we had our sea safari! This is what I had been most excited about for this weekend. We got suited up in waterproof pants and jackets before setting out on the boat. It was about two and a half hours on the water. We got a tour of Dingle Bay and some surrounding islands (including one that they filmed some Star Wars and a few other movies on!). It was great to see the beautiful landscapes, but of course the highlight was the wildlife! We saw jellyfish, puffins, seals, and lots of dolphins. The dolphins would come up close to the boat and swim along with us. It was such a treat to be able to see so many animals. The sea safari was the trip's highlight. If you decide to travel to Dingle, I absolutely recommend it! 

We had hoped to have time to do another hike in Dingle before needing to catch our bus to the train station, but the sea safari ran just late enough that we didn’t want to risk missing our bus. So, we grabbed lunch (fish and chips of course), did some window shopping, and hopped on our bus to Tralee. We got on our train to Dublin with no problems and were back in time to go to bed for work tomorrow! It was such a great weekend seeing more of Ireland and getting out of the city for a few days. I’m so excited to travel even more throughout the rest of my time here.