Bantry

We arrived in Bantry a bit later than planned hence all the tours were slightly later leaving.  Because we had to use the tenders getting to the coaches took longer too.  Our tour was of the Beara Peninsula, of which the town is right at the top. Apparently our cruise ship is the first for thirty years to have moored just off Bantry, most mooring further out in the bay and tendering to a different town. The guide was quite surprised at that and mentioned it several times. She admitted just before we got off that she had gone to the usual town and had to hot foot it at the coast to meet us on time. Probably a good job that we were running late. 

Weather wise we were lucky, it was good until we were nearly back and then it was only just raining. First we stopped at a fishing town, Castletownbere.  There were quite a few fishing boats in the harbour and they had trawl nets on board. The guide said that the catch here was mainly flat fish like Plaice.

From here we continued on to the bottom of the peninsula at Kenmore.  We had scones and coffee at a local hotel before free time walking around the town. Robin and I chose to take the short walk to the Ring of Kerry, a stone circle probably dating back to the Bronze Age, rather than looking at the shops.  The ring is much smaller than any others I have seen before, just about seventeen metres in diameter.  The blurb at the site admitted that the meaning of the circle, or why it was built was unknown.  It has never been excavated and the only concrete fact given was that the stones were not local but quarried some miles away.