I was in Killarney, Ireland, for a couple of days last September. (Satellite view - sorry they don’t have high resolution.)
(Note: as usual, all pix are hot-linked to larger versions - just click!)
I didn’t have much time to look around and the weather didn’t cooperate. Hans, my Swedish colleague, and I walked around the town of Killarney both nights, but it was after dark and not conducive to photography.
It was a business trip, of course. Here I am in front of a section of a container crane ready for transportation to the coast. Given the width of the typical roads in the area, I wasn’t surprised to hear that they drive in the middle of the night with the police cordoning off the road…
After we did our customer presentation, we went immediately across the street to the Killarney Golf & Fishing Club (two of Hans’ passions) for a bit of a walk and some pictures.
Beautiful grounds…
This is a three-picture panoramic shot (so click on it to see all the detail), showing Lough Leane (Lower Lake, AKA Muckross Lake). Most of the land across the lake is part of the Killarney National Park (the wikipedia entry and another "home" page). The Killarney National Park is home of the only wild herd of the Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) in Ireland. While there are other types of deer currently in Ireland, the red deer are the only "natives". We saw some wandering not too far from town but the light was no good for pix…
This is my pensive pose…
It is clear which country generates a majority of their tourist dollars…
Dunno what type of tree this is. They had quite a few and I really liked them…
The next day, I had to take a noon flight to London. I had a little bit of time between sunrise and when I had to leave for the drive to the Cork airport. To maximize my tiny bit of sightseeing, I picked two places that were close together (and on the right side of Killarney).
First stop, the Torc Waterfall. This is the Owengarriff River flowing between the falls and the lake.
Here’s the main attraction. Not a big waterfall, but quite nice. I wish that I had time to hike around the trails…
On the way back to the car, I spotted this Helvella crispa (AKA White Saddle mushroom).
This old rock wall really does a nice job of pointing out the amount of rainfall they get in Killarney…
My next stop was Muckross House (a couple of other links: here and here). I only had about 20 minutes, so I walked quickly around the grounds and snapped a few pix. Luckily it had stopped raining during that time…
A lovely evergreen…
I wouldn’t mind terribly if this was the view from my backyard…
All these nice big windows face the view in the previous picture…
A seriously big oak…
One day, hopefully, we’ll take the kids and spend some time seeing all the sights…
