The Ring of Kerry by Motorhome – Kerry Cliffs and Valentia Island

Zagan the motorhome is back up to full power with a new pair of leisure batteries. As promised by Don at the auto parts store, the batteries arrived at exactly 4pm the day after we ordered them. When he called me in the morning to confirm they’d arrived at his store, he mentioned that something else on his delivery hadn’t arrived. Perhaps our luck has changed as we were only held up by a day getting them.

The driver dropped the batteries off at the ‘Mace’ corner shop in Sneem and even offered to give us a lift back to Zagan with them. We’d left one of Zagan’s poorly batteries for him in the store out the back of the shop. This shed area was full of big bags of animal feed and fuel and was left open all day. But then so are car doors and windows around here, honesty boxes are very common. Occasionally you see cars left running with the keys in while the owners nips somewhere. It’s hard to explain, but a lot of Ireland feels like the safe and secure world of my childhood, they seem to trust each other.

Back in Zagan we knew the Hymer designers must have had a chuckle to themselves when they positioned the leisure batteries under the front seats. Both weigh a tonne. Fortunately, someone in the Hymer Owners Facebook Group pointed out that you can move the seats forward just enough to get access to the batteries. Armed with that top tip and a procedure for shutting off the electrical systems one by one before disconnecting the batteries Jay set to work changing over Zagan’s leisure batteries. A motorhome heart operation if you will. He did a sterling job swapping them out, testing everything and refitting the seats, while I supervised and handed him tools.

Last night as we hooked Zagan up to the electrical supply once again, this time there was no bubbling noise or smell of sulphur coming from the batteries. The volt meter (my technical term for it) was showing they were working well and brimming with power. To celebrate we went out for a walk to the free outdoor gym before picking up an ice cream on the way back – well I had been in the gym for all of five minutes.

This morning we were up and at ‘em. Zagan was emptied and filled at the service point and we were on the road by 9.30am (which is early for us!). Why so keen? We’ve heard that the tourist coaches travel the Ring of Kerry in an anticlockwise direction and we’re going clockwise. We figured they would take a while to get around to where we were (they tended to arrive in Sneem about 1pm onwards). If we set off early enough in the morning we wouldn’t meet any on blind corners.

The road going west from Sneem was much wider than the roads we’d experienced on the Beara Peninsula and varied from silky smooth to rattling the van so much I thought I might loose a filling. We wound our way along the coast, pulling in at several viewpoints. This was made much easier by the lay-bys being on our side of the road, I guess the coaches just drive by and you take your photos out of the window.

While a coach trip does look like a great stress free way of ‘doing’ the Ring of Kerry, you only get a small amount of time in each place and I’m not sure I’d enjoy it. Certainly seeing the queues for ice cream in Sneem when a several coaches and a hundred people arrive at once, doesn’t seem like my idea of fun – thank goodness we have a motorhome. Our plan to get up early almost worked, and we only met three coaches on our drive, all on nice wide parts of the N70 main road so it wasn’t an issue.

Having experienced ‘The Best Fish and Chips in Ireland’ a couple of days ago, today we stopped at ‘The Best Known View in Ireland’ and drove past ‘The Only Beach Bar in Ireland’ as we made our way to ‘Kerry’s Most Spectacular Cliff’s’. Beginning to see a bit of a theme for overzealous marketing statements, and as the weather was a bit misty, we really weren’t expecting much from the cliffs.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I spotted the ‘no coaches’ sign as we turned onto the narrow road to the cliffs. We parked up and paid our €5 each entry fee. For an extra €20 we could have stayed for the night in a pretty spectacular parking area over looking the cliffs. The ticket office played Irish music and the recreated drystone Clochan (beehive houses) had plastic birds stuck to the top of them. However, at the top of the path by the Wild Atlantic Way marker I peered over the fencing to be once again blown away by the impressiveness of mother nature.

Dark gray slate cliffs plunged into foaming white spray surrounded by azure blue waters. Clinging to the cliff faces kittiwakes and fulmar perched precariously on their nests. The cliff tops were carpeted with lush green grass, dotted with tiny pink flowers. A path took you up to a couple of view points on the tops of the cliffs, looking out across the ocean to the Skellig Islands, which were sadly just an outline in the mist.

After a couple of hours and about a million photographs later, we returned to Zagan. It would have been an experience to stay there for the night, but as it was only just noon we decided to carry on over to Valentia Island. The single street of houses and shops at Portmagee harbour was awash with cars.

The port town is the setting off point for boat trips to the Skellig Islands, made famous by their part in two Star Wars films. So it’s no wonder if was packed. Jay had checked online a week ago to see if we could book a boat trip over there, a bit shocked to find the price is now €140 a person. No matter, the next availability if you wanted to actually land on the islands was September, when the season ends. We tucked in behind a school bus and let him move all the traffic out of the way for us.

Turning left we crossed the bridge onto Valentia Island and made our way to Geokaun Mountain, the highest point on the island. As we climbed higher of course the roads got narrower, eventually ending in a small parking area (N51.916242, W10.350177)

The owner arrived on his tractor and was just opening up the ticket kiosk. Fortunate for us, because there was no way to pay for an overnight stay using the ticket machine. A friendly smiling guy, we had a chat with him and he showed us which was the best of the four car park view points for sunrise and sunset, and provided us with a map of walks around the mountain and a cliff viewpoint.

Being up a mountain means the weather up here is a bit different to sea level, and we’ve spent the day watching pieces of landscape appear and disappear through gaps in the clouds. We’ve moved up to the highest parking area as it gives wider views and is a bit more sheltered from the wind than the others. Looking out across the bay when there’s a gap, the mountains on the other side are wearing cloud hats today.

Information boards dotted around the viewpoints tell of the history of the area, local legends and what there is to see. Directly below where we are parked is a large slate quarry which first opened in 1816, it has provided the slate for the roof on the Houses of Parliament in London, along with many other landmarks. A bit over to the right is a series of white buildings which house the Valencia Radio Station. This one doesn’t play ‘tunes’ it transmits safety notices, navigation warnings and weather forecasts daily as well as being part of the Irish Coastguard Service.

On the shore by the radio station are a series of footprints made 385 million years ago by a Tetrapod. They’re evidence of the transition by primitve amphibians from living in water to living on land. At the far end of the island is the site of the first transatlantic telegraph cable between Europe and North America in 1866. It cut communications between the continents from days to minutes. For such a small island, there is a lot of history here.

Yesterday evening the wind dropped and the clouds around us lifted a little. Sadly clouds leave everything a little flat and grey, but now we could now see down to Valentia harbour and the islands at its entrance. Two other vans joined us for a very peaceful night. When we awoke in the morning the could was so thick we could hardly see them, let alone the view.

Jay went out for a run on the path around the mountain, and as he did so the cloud cleared a bit. I got chatting to our van neighbours who are from Hungary. As we spoke I said we weren’t sure where to go next and the chap, who gave us some interesting advice centred on Buddism, suggested we stay here another night. He likened being in a motorhome to being a turtle, carrying our home with us and moving as slowly as we like.

The cloud is coming and going in waves, but when it’s clear the view is stunning. So, we’ve decided to stay another night, after all it’s the weekend and places get busy. Up here it’s so peaceful and calm, among the birdsong and hares. We’ll walk back down to the ticket kiosk this afternoon and pay the chap, it’s such a privilege to be able to stay in such a special place for a night or two. From now on, we’ll be more turtle.

Ju x