Goosey Island
Sneem
Ring of Kerry
Kerry
Ireland
1 Night
Great nights sleep and woke to the view of the bay with the sun shining down and a solitary surfer out on the waves.
A morning walk on the beach before breakfast looking out at the Skellig islands in the distance. Now uninhabited, the Skellig Michael was a monastic retreat with its little beehive shaped stone huts where the monks sat. It was also location for some Star Wars film but that’s often said where ever you go.
The surfer came in and we had a brief chat. He was local fella, having a surf before work. He told me the Skelligs were where the monks and Irish went to escape the English, so now we get the fuller picture.
After breakfast we made our way around some of the most fantastic roads on the Ring of Kerry. This road loops around the edge of the Iveragh Peninsula and joined to the east by the Gap of Dunloe, a mountain pass running north to south.
Our destination today is Goosey Island in the town of Sneem. Goosey Island is an aire in the middle of town set by the river with it’s rapids. You pay €15 at the pub, Dan Murphys, for 24hrs. We needed to dump our waste so this was a great place with some facilities and was close to the seaweed baths.
A wander around the town and a sausage and chip lunch at the fish & chip shop before it started to rain so we made our way back to the van. At this stage we were the only people on this aire but two other vans turned up a bit later.
The rain soon went and we thought it would be a good time to check out the seaweed bath place. This seems to be a thing here in Ireland, at least the west coast. We saw it in Doolin but it was closed or we would have given it a go.
Sneem Seaweed baths describe it as a hot soak in beautiful wooden barrels, overlooking the South Kerry mountains and Sneem estuary. We got there, its at the end of a road to a large hotel and part of the hotel. There’s not a soul in sight, just 4 or 5 barrels not looking so beautiful. They did look over the South Kerry mountains though and they are beautiful, but we were’nt sold so we left.
On our way out Jo noticed a fairy trail so we followed it into the woods in search of fairies. A few fairy houses and lots of mud but only one fairy.
Back in the high street we popped in a shop, bought a few bits and got chatting to the shop owner who tipped us off on a short walk down to Sneem harbour and then back to the van.
