Killorglin to Dingle

June 13, 2025

We were down for our continental breakfast at 9 am and met two groups of Americans, one family from Texas and a solo traveler, Steve, from Indiana. We had the chance for more of a visit with Steve. He was a high school English and literature teacher from Southern Indiana, and has been traveling to Ireland yearly (except for covid) since 2016. He has Irish roots and he said he just started meeting people in Ireland and that made it easier to come back year after year.

We got started about 10:30 under some actual sunshine and our spirits were high. Dave thinks the Baker’s cyst behind his knee is receding, the sun was out (sort of) and we were riding to Dingle! It turned out to be a glorious ride. We rode a fast 33 km to Inch, much of it on the busy main road heading to the Dingle Peninsula but the traffic was suitably polite and we were not in a head wind - always a plus. At Inch we stopped for a bowl of seafood chowder at Sammys café. Inch is a small village with a hotel, some b and b’s and a few eateries, its claim to fame being its surfing beach. It was indeed a beautiful beach, a bit windy, and you would have to be a hardy soul to be out in it without a wetsuit.

After Inch we had 27 km of glorious riding. The route veered up and away from the coast and eventually turned into being one small lane, so we were off the main road, but could see the sea for much of the climb. After gawking at the sea a few times we continued through some pretty uplands and agricultural areas. We had some fun descending on small roads and the route put us all the way into Dingle without venturing onto the main road, until we reached the town. We even had a short stretch of a real bicycle trail - a rarity in Ireland. The last few km we were on the so-called “Kerry Camino” and indeed we did start to see a number of hikers.

Dingle is a famous tourist town and it’s small, but it was a Friday afternoon so we had a funny minor traffic jam riding through the town trying to find the house. Our friend Mona was watching for us and waved us down just as we started to pull out the instructions she had sent us to find her house.

Mona and I go way back to when I was a young lawyer in the 1990s. I worked as a volunteer at the local bar association in Portland and she was the executive director and we became friends. After a few years she moved onto run different organizations around the country but would come back to Oregon to visit and I would look her up if I was in her town when traveling on business. Her last position was in the DC area so we have seen her recently when we were out visiting our son and his family in Vienna, Va.

Mona’s family lived in Cork but she left home at 17 to come to America, back when that seemed like an optimistic thing to do. She still has family (siblings and cousins) in Ireland and has an EU passport. She just retired in April 2025 and rented a house in Dingle for a few weeks as a transitional way to slide into retirement. She then cast a wide net to all her friends and family inviting them to come out to stay. I suspect she never expected us to take her up on the invitation! In any event, the opportunity for us was too good to miss. It made Dingle our end point for our ride out west. After we spend a couple of nights here we have one more ride to Tralee to catch a train to Dublin.

We had a fun, relaxing night. She clears out on Sunday - the same day we do - so she made a great casual supper with salad and charcuterie and cheese with the random leftovers in her fridge.

Jill and Mona catching up with Mona grousing that I should be taking pictures of the scenery, not her.

Dave did some serious damage to a bottle of Jameson Black Barrel whisky, while we watched Stage 6 of the Dauphiné on the monster tv. It was fun to catch up on how everything went with her transition and what she plans to do in the future.

The house was super comfortable- we have a very large room with nice windows and the tub on offer was great after our ride.

Tomorrow we will do some exploring in Dingle.

Today's ride: 57 km (35 miles)
Total: 1,518 km (943 miles)

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