I’ve been in Ireland since January, and the end of March was the first time I traveled to what I’ve come to understand is quite a mystical country. To the uninitiated, Ireland is a green paradise unblemished so far by the industrial growth that many such green paradises have been tarnished by.

To keep with the green spirit, this is an account of my bike ride up and across the Gap of Dunloe in Killarney National Park, County Kerry. Words and pictures and two poorly shot camera videos make up this post. I realized why it’d have been smart to invest in a Go-Pro for this ride, and of course stash it away in the fourth level of my chest of drawers until the next great adventure.

Some more background, County Kerry is in the west coast of Ireland, and is home to Killarney national park. Killarney is a small little town right at the edge of the national park which only came to prominence when Queen Victoria decided to camp there for a few days and take in the beauty back in 1861. The national park boasts the tallest mountain range in Ireland: The MacGillyCuddy’s Reeks. Now that’s a mouthful.

So the Gap of Dunloe is a single lane road that goes up, into and across the Reeks into the Black Valley. The valley is so named because it was the last place in Ireland to be electrified, in the late 1970s.

Here I was on a fine spring day in western Ireland on my rented bike with a plan to make it across and over the Gap of Dunloe in time to make my return journey at a place named Lord Brandon’s Cottage. My return journey would be by boat. I’ll talk about the boat ride soon as well.

So as can be seen on this map, the blue route is the one I followed. It was a 22km bike ride with around 7km being uphill, starting at Kate Kearney’s Cottage, followed by a 5km descent down into Lord Brandon’s Cottage.

The rest of this post mainly comprises of the pictures from my camera which I took of my bike set against various backdrops along my route. I didn’t have a companion photographer for this ride. As a consequence, it was up to me to place my bike in inconspicuous locations for scale.

Right after I clicked this last picture the incline kicked in really sharp, and I was not at all in the right gear on my bike, so when I tried pedaling, all I did was cause the chain to jump out of gear. I had to spend a good 10 minutes getting my hands greasy meddling around with the chain to get it in order. These 10 minutes could have come really useful after a little while.

The next few pictures take me all the way up through to the top of the Gap of Dunloe. Enjoy!

A few more turns later I was at the top of the Gap of Dunloe. As is often the case, the destination is much, much less fascinating than the actual journey. There wasn’t anything of interest to see at the top, except a sign which marked the top of the pass.

Here is what it looked like. I was absolutely exhausted by this time and just rested on a flat rock at the top for a good fifteen minutes.

The top of the gap was thankfully, just an intermediate goal of my trip. I still had the descent to look forward to and the boat ride across the lakes to complete my loop and put me within a couple of kilometers of Killarney, which is where I started my day.

It is often said that the weather in Ireland can pass through all four seasons in a single day. And this is even more case at this elevation. Within seconds of me deciding to get back onto my bike and reap the benefits of my hard work with a swift descent, all hopes of a daredevil descent were crushed by a hailstorm. I still did have enough time to click a picture of the view across the Black Valley, before the hailstorm became too painful. If I hadn’t wasted those ten minutes having to fix my gear-chain on my bike, this would have been well worth it.

Twenty minutes later, and with around half an hour to go before my boat departed, I arrived drenched and cold at Lord Brandon’s Cottage. To my joyous relief, there was a small cafe at the Cottage and I could buy myself a really well timed hot chocolate.

The story of Lord Brandon’s Cottage goes like this — It was just a 19th century hunting lodge which was renovated as a 20th century boathouse. But there’s a juicier legend behind Lord Brandon, his cottage and the stone tower on the premises.

The boat ride back was through the three lakes of Killarney, namely, the Upper Lake, the Muckross Lake, and the Lough Leane. The Lough Leane is the most rough lake I’ve ever sailed through. The waves were crashing against the wood spraying cold water onto my rain soaked clothes and I have never felt more cold and exposed to the elements than in that half an hour. The whole boat ride took an hour and a half and finished at Ross Castle, which was just a 2km ride from Killarney.

Ross castle is a 15th century stone tower house, the remains of which are maintained by the Irish Public Works department. I wanted to go visit inside, but I was absolutely bone-weary from the biking and just decided to head back home for a well deserved nap.

Here’s a bit more from the wiki about Ross Castle and it’s lore. Ross Castle was the home of the O’Donoghue’s, for context.

There is a legend that O’Donoghue leaped or was sucked out of the window of the grand chamber at the top of the castle and disappeared into the waters of the lake along with his horse, his table and his library. It is said that O’Donoghue now lives in a great palace at the bottom of the lake where he keeps a close eye on everything that he sees.

A library at the bottom of the lake? Interesting.

How would I rate this bike trip? I hope the pictures speak for themselves.