The following is an except from my trip journal during my 11 days in Ireland.

27 May 2009

This morning was another wet one. As it wasn’t forecast to clear until the afternoon, we opted for plan B, a different hike through Killarny National Forest (Ireland’s first national forest). We packed our lunches after arriving at the park. We then hiked over to Muckrock House, which is located in the park.

Starting out on the hike we walked a few km until we reached an old Abby. I enjoy walking through and photographing ruins, so it was a nice stop. It appeared be undergoing some restoration as well.

The next major sight along the hike was a Yew forest. This particular one was about 200 years old, so relatively young. It was a cool forest, with only moss growing on the ground.

Our lunch stop was at the edge of one of the beautiful lakes in the park. Unfortunately, it was infested with midges. We continued on after lunch, hiking around the lake.

The last major stop we made was at a nice cascading waterfall. Oh, if they only froze in the winter! As with most rivers here, they seemed to be turned brown by the peat and bog.

On the way back to Kenmare we stopped at “Ladies' View”, which has an amazing view of the park. It was named this after Queen Victoria and her ladies and waiting, as they had stopped at the lookout during a visit.

We arrived back in Kenmare around 15:15. The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring the town and picking up some presents and postcards. We went to a pub after dinner and listened to some traditional irish music. Two accordions and a guitar. It was quite good!

All of the pictures from Day 7 are available here: Ireland Day 7: Killarney National Forest on flickr.