Cycle Through Killarney National Park To The Gap Of Dunloe

Over the weekend, my boyfriend and I went up to Killarney. We decided we were going to cycle some of the Ring of Kerry on Saturday. We set off early, knowing that this was going to be a long, tough, wet day out on the bikes.

We started our cycle through Killarney National Park. This was beautiful, we got to the see the Lakes of Killarney and some beautiful rivers, waterfalls, and streams along the way. We took abut a 20 minute break and sat down by one of the rivers and ate some food before continuing our journey.

After our short break we got up and continued our cycle. This was about 2 and a half hours in, so our butts were pretty sore by now. We started getting less into the trees and more into the mountains at this point. Sheep and lamb were on either side of us throughout this part of the cycle. This was probably the most memorable part of the cycle for me. A baby lamb couldn’t find it’s family so it was sitting and baa-ing at us through the fence. We were so close to this thing we could touch it, but we decided against it because there were other sheep around. The lamb continued to baa and follow us as we made our way up the mountain. We decided to stop and try and lead this lamb back to the other sheep. It continued to follow us and we got closer to the other sheep. Let me tell you, these sheep look pissed off at us. Seriously, I was actually worried they were going to come through the very thin fence and attack us. I think they thought we were trying to harm the lamb rather than help it. Anyways, we guided the lamb back to it’s family safe and sound. Thank god. Then we continued our journey up the mountain towards the Gap of Dunloe.

For those of you that don’t know, the Gap of Dunloe is a narrow pass between two mountains. Apparently, it’s pretty popular in Ireland, which I wasn’t aware of until this past weekend. I would say it took us about an hour to cycle up the mountain. It was tough, a consistent incline for about 3-5 miles maybe. We had people driving or walking down the hill, giving us words of encouragement telling us we were almost there. I heard it so many times I was starting to think these people were lying to us! But we finally made it, this was the best part of the trip. We had been cycling for about 4 hours at this point, and we finally made it to our destination. The picture shows me with my hands up between the Gap of Dunloe. The pictures don’t do this place justice at all. It was foggy, cold, and rainy, but you can’t tell just how huge these mountains are. It was awesome, I’m so happy we did it and I was BEYOND happy to get home and take a hot shower. It took us about another hour cycle to get home, but this was easy and flat. So all together, a 5 hour cycle.

It’s been two days later, and my butt is still sore from that bike ride. About 100 km on a bike I guess would do that to ya!

For more pictures from my trip, check out:
https://www.simplythescoop.com/topic-detail/mYawiQ==/bike-ride-through-killarney-national-park-to-the-gap-of-dunloe