Kinsale to Glengarriff

This morning at the hotel we had our first Irish breakfast of the trip. An Irish breakfast starts with juice, cereal, toast, and yogurt. Then it follows up with fried eggs, bacon (really ham), sausage, more toast, butter, jelly, coffee, and more juice. Then a nap.

We got a leisurely start out of Kinsale and drove to Old Head Golf Club. Old Head is an exclusive course outside of Kinsale that is entirely on a peninsula surrounded by cliffs dropping into the sea, The White Lady Hotel where we were staying sponsors a tournament there, and Danny, the hotel manager said to tell the guard at the gate we were guests of the White Lady and he'd let us in to look around. When we got to the entrance, sure enough the gate was closed and there was a young guy there deciding who got through. When I told him we were staying at the White Lady and just wanted to look around, he corrected me. He said he couldn't let us in to look around but if we wanted to go to the clubhouse for a beer, that would make us customers, and he could let us in. If we were dressed correctly. So I corrected my statement and told the guard that we stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night, and wanted to go for a beer. He let us through. 

Old Head is the only golf course I've seen with a helicopter landing pad. And a chopper from “Executive Flight Services” landed while we were there. But we figured it wasn't anyone important or we wouldn't have gotten past the gate.

The GPS took us through some back roads on the way to Glengarriff, past a couple of beaches crowded with Irish taking advantage of this weather. Have I mentioned that we've heard several times

already that this is the first real summer the people in SW Ireland have had in years?

We got into Glengarriff early in the afternoon, checked into the Harbor View B&B, and arranged to have a taxi meet us in Kenmare, 20 miles away. Kenmare is on the north side of the peninsula, where our hiking ends a week and 90 hiking miles from now. The drive is 20 miles of mountain roads and a couple of tunnels, but we got there shortly after the taxi did. We dropped the car at the B&B we'll be at in Kenmare, and had the taxi take us the 20 miles back to Glengarriff. Total fare for the taxi to come from Glengarriff, pick up the four of us, and take us the 20 miles back? 40 Euro. And that's with gas (diesel) at close to $8.00 a gallon.

Got back to Glengarriff, went to MacCarthy's Bar for a pint of Guinness, then went across the street to Casey's Bar and Restaurant for dinner. We sat on the Bar side, along with most of the locals. One of our crew asked the waitress whether she preferred Guinness or Murphy's. Now for some context to this question – probably everyone reading this has heard of Guinness, the world famous stout, brewed in Dublin, the largest city in Ireland. Well, Murphy's is an equal good (better?), if less famous stout from Cork, the second largest city in Ireland, and the largest city in the South of Ireland. There's rivalry between the cities and the stouts.

Anyway, we learned that Murphy's has a marketing scheme that involves a blind taste test of three stouts, andsince we asked which was the preferred, we all qualified for the test. So we were given three glasses of beer and asked to determine which one we liked. The three (all unidentified) were Guinness, Murphy's, and Beamish, another Cork stout, from the oldest brewery in Cork. The results were surprising – three of us picked Murphy's, John picked Beamish. So now, fickle as we are, we're Murphy's fans. It also makes you feel cool to act like a local when you order your beer.

Casey's had a pretty wide menu – the pub food menu as well as the restaurant menu were available. John wasn't certain what he wanted, so he asked the young women with a plate of lasagna at the table next to us how the lasagna was. She said it was excellent. John then proceeded to order the Guinness and Beef Pie.

So after a great meal, and ice cream at the homemade ice cream place across the street, we went back to our B&B early to get ready for the first day of hiking. A 14 mile day ahead.