After a couple of early starts, today we were afforded the luxury of a slightly later departure with only 100km to tick off and plans to make just the one stop en route at Crag Cave. The journey would be longer if it wasn't for the Shannon Ferry that crosses the estuary between Killimer in Co. Clare and Tarbert in Co. Kerry saving the need to head much further inland to Limerick. The crossing takes about 20 minutes and the boats have raised passenger walkways that double up as viewing galleries for the tourist. Most locals stayed in their vehicles and it was soon time to join them as we approached the southern shores. Today there was a twice hourly peak summer service in operation using both boats in the fleet, but most days throughout the rest of the year only a single boat is in operation departing hourly.
Whilst waiting to disembark the boat and putting Crag Cave in to Google Maps, Petr (who was right next to me in his lefthand drive Czech motorhome) explained how he has a special SatNav that takes in to consideration the height, width and length of his vehicle. It was little surprise that his route kept him on the National "N" roads, whilst mine soon diverged on to a Regional "R" road. I decided to follow Google Maps and the drive was uneventful and I'm sure would have also been fine for Petr's slightly larger vehicle than our VW Crafter conversion.
Crag Cave is a 3.8km cave complex located close to Castleisland in Co. Kerry. Back in the mid 80s two locals decided that it would be good to open up a portion of the cave to the public and following the building of a man-made shaft a 350m section became a show cave. Today there is a self guided audio tour of the cave that stops you at 8 different locations and explains some of the key features. In total we were in the cave for around 30 minutes and it was all going very smoothly until Forrest's camera battery died. I say Forrest's camera loosely as technically it's ours, however over the last year or so he's assumed ownership, although charging it or at least knowing when the battery is getting low appears to have remained fully our responsibility! This turned what had been something Forrest had really been enjoying into the "worst day ever and it was all our fault".
The cave was all naturally formed over many years and includes a fine selection of stalactites and stalagmites, some of which are continuing to grow and are likely to meet and form a column in the future.
Once back in the van we made the most of having our fridge and kitchen space to make some fresh wraps for lunch and then it was onwards to our site for the night at Green Acres Caravan Park in Aughacasla, on the Dingle Peninsula. This is our first beach side location and the kids had planned to inflate the bodyboards and have a play in the sea, but despite the weather not looking too bad from behind the windscreen of the van, the reality was something quite different with a horrible breeze coming off the water and the temperature really struggling.
For once the parent consortium managed to convince the kids to "just have a paddle" and they played well together in the sands until some squally showers called time on this.
Petr had hoped to have a fire pit on the beach to toast some marshmallows after dinner, but we instead set up next to their van and the kids enjoyed their marshmallows and smores made with digestives whilst the older contingent had a glass or two of red. The brollies only had to come out the once!
We made one final pop over to the beach and the weather hadn't really improved, but with the sun starting to set it did allow for a nice photo that slightly masked the reality!
Tomorrow we continue to head south, stopping off at the Wetlands centre in Tralee and then onwards to Kenmare and our overnight location of Wave Crest Caravan Park on the Ring of Kerry.
Blogged by Matt
