Killarney Balarney

Wednesday May 6, 2026

Killarney

Distance traveled: 226 km

 

Cumulative distance: 652 km.

Temperature 12 - 15 degrees, light rain off an on throughout the afternoon and into the early evening.

Rather than an in-house breakfast, we went across the street to Cafe Depeche. OK, you are dating yourself if you immediately thought "Depeche Mode". On the other hand, you are proving your cool factor. The in-house breakfast looked a little like an American highway hotel breakfast bar, though I didn't actually see a waffle maker in there but it didn't look all that inviting.  Cafe Depeche was pretty much black everywhere inside but, along with the espresso machines as you walk in the door, there was a wide variety of liquor and wine bottles behind the counter. Around the room there were numerous empty but sealed champagne bottles. They must have had a big opening night party, kept all the empties, re-foiled the tops then put them out for decorations. So it is a coffee bar/wine bar. And had a limited day menu. So we ordered decent lattes and poached eggs on sourdough. Simple yet effective. No meat and potatoes for our breakfast again! Oh, there were numerous decorations of Depeche Mode around the place, CDs and vinyl of Depeche Mode for sale and, in their words, "Depeche Mode every-day-all-the-time". And the best lattes we have had for several days.

We started the day with a drive retracing some steps so that we could go see the Titanic exhibition at Cobh (pronounced "Cove"). Cobh was the last port of call for the Titanic before setting sail for New York and 133 additional passengers boarded. 3rd class passengers paid the princely sum of 8 pounds, which included food for the journey. The annual earnings for unskilled labour in those days was 26 pounds so, even though 8 pounds doesn't sound like much, even for "those days", it would have represented a lot of money. One thing we learned is that the Titanic had sailed from France to Cobh before embarking further to New York. On board was a photographer who took 79 photographs of life on the Titanic; she departed the boat, with her pictures, at Cobh. The photographic record was emulated by James Cameron when he made the movie Titanic, leading to a realistic portrayal of how the ship appeared inside and some things that happened. Like, the partying in 3rd class.

The planned destination for the day was Killarney but the route guidance was set from Cork so this confused Android Auto (not us, of course) somewhat as it was desperate to take us back to the hotel in Cork so that we could start our journey. Don't get me wrong; notwithstanding a few limitations, Android Auto is an excellent way to navigate using Google Maps. It is just a matter of learning some of the little quirks. For example, I could easily delete the starting point of the journey so that it would start at the first way point.  However, using the route I had originally painstakingly mapped out though all the "fun bits" of Ireland, I couldn't get it to add our starting point of Cobh. What we ended up doing was navigating to the first way point on my originally painstakingly mapped out route using Nan's phone then when we got to waypoint 1, my phone picked up the course. That's 10 minutes I'll never get back.  On the other hand, we saved probably a half hour by taking a ferry across Passage West, a huge water inlet that leads to Cork rather than taking the long way around. (Check out the Spotwalla link.)

Ed note: Sometimes, I say, "I'm retired, I have all the time in the world" and sometimes I say, "I don't have much time left. Hurry up, get out of my way!"

In the charming town of Waypoint 1, somewhere near Clonakitty, or Clonakilty, we stopped at the grocery/clothing/hardware/electronics/bridal store and got some groceries for a picnic lunch along the way: some fresh fruit and salads from the salad/wedding gown counter and a couple of bags of chips (what WE call chips, not what THEY call chips, which are in fact, French Fries) and a few crackers from the electronics/biscuits aisle. Through Skibbereen and on to Ballydehob (I just love the names here) we actually found a park with picnic tables and a playground where four kids probably under five years were running wild with a few mothers keeping a careful eye out for their charges. It was an ideal place for lunch; there is an inlet beside the park though it looked like low tide as there was only muck. Adjacent the park was a stone, arched bridge going over the inlet so after lunch, I went up to investigate it's current or former purpose. Turns out that it was a train bridge from 1886 to 1947.  

We punched on to Killarney from Billy-Bob over one of the most scenic routes we seen since we left Dublin. Utterly stunning scenery over Caha Pass with breath-taking views of the surrounding hills, valleys and lakes. 

Reaching Killarney, we discovered that it is the "Banff of Ireland" only without the National Government running the show. Killarney is jam packed with hotels, restaurants and other small businesses like candy shops and jewelery shops, all squeezed into a tightly packed town centre. When we were paying for our picnic lunch items, the cashier asked about our trip because she was so surprised we were out where she was located.  She admired us for being away from the tourist centres like "Dublin and Killarney". We will render judgement when we leave in a couple of days.