Dingle, County Kerry- Friday, August 9, 2013

We try to plan our vacations out, usually in great detail, so that we can make the most of our time.  Once in while, though, you have to call an audible.  For several days in a row, we've spent long times driving in the car with relatively short stops.  The driving has taken a lot out of us.  We had picked a spot to stay in Tralee so that today, we could either drive around the Ring of Kerry or drive around the Dingle Peninsula, but both of those options were about spending more time in the car looking at scenery (which the girls have had enough of) on narrow roads with busses coming at us (which Julie has had enough of).  So we came up with a couple of options for the girls to choose from.  Their first choice was a sheep farm with sheepdog demonstrations, but it seemed to be closed today.   Their second choice was an aquarium, which ended up taking us out the peninsula to Dingle anyway, and gave us a few unexpected wildlife encounters.

The town of Dingle was less than an hour away, and while we did look at the scenery, we more or less drove straight to Oceanworld Aquarium for the girls.   One favorite spot might have been the tank where the girls got to touch the rays as they swam up. The other favorite was probably the penguins.  There were large plexiglass bubbles built into the penguins' tank, where the girls could look at them up close as the penguins fed on small fish that were frozen into an ice block.  The aquarium was nice, but as Emma noted, it was small. 

We then signed up for a one-hour harbor cruise out into Dingle Harbor, and we got to meet Dingle's most famous resident- Fungie the dolphin.  He came to Dingle harbor 30 years ago.  Other dolphins come and go, but Fungie has stayed there. Nobody knows where he came from or why he stays.  He likes greeting boats, and it's common to see him at the mouth of Dingle's harbor.  While we went through, there were two other large tourist boats and several smaller private boats that were circling around the same spot looking for Fungie to surface.  He did a few times while we were there.  Anna said he looked like he was smiling.  We saw other things on the boat tour, but Fungie was the star.  We saw some of the dramatic cliff faces which were nicely lit by the sun this time.  It was cold, and the girls spent some time in the warmer sheltered area on the boat.  Emma fell asleep on the way back.  But both girls loved seeing Fungie.  Anna said, "It's like seeing the president," to which Emma added, "...of the ocean!"

Our next stop was the Dingle Wildlife and Seal Sanctuary.  We started with lunch at its cafe and then went into the sanctuary itself.  There are a variety of breeds of ducks there and the girls had bought some duck feed.   Some of the ducks were ready to eat of out the girls' hands, but the girls didn't like that.  We saw a pair of owls that are there.  But when we followed the boardwalk around, we got to the real stars of the place-- the baby seals.  We saw some very little ones, swimming or resting in their own kennels.  A worker there told about how seal pups from all over Ireland who are hurt or abandoned are rehabilitated here.  When they are large enough and healthy enough, the seals are released back into the wild.  We saw five larger ones swimming in some pools together.  Julie had wanted to see seals since she saw them in some pictures back in Antrim, so she was happy to get to see these pups today.  So were Anna and Emma.

Had we gone to a sheep farm today, the three girls were talking about "adopting" a sheep, but since we went to the seal sanctuary instead, we were able to do something a little more useful.  The girls adopted a baby seal, to help pay for her rehabilitation and eventual release back into the wild.  She is an abandoned or orphaned seal pup from Donegal named Molly.  When she was found she was very undernourished, and she had to have two older seals put with her to help her learn to eat fish.  She is now doing well, though she is kept in a small "kennel" where she can be cared for until she weighs 15 kilos.  Then she is released to be in a larger pool with other seals.  When she weighs 30 kilos, she will be released into the wild, and we will be notified how our adopted seal progresses.  (She's also on the Facebook page of the Dingle Wildlife and Seal Sanctuary, so we have feeling we will know all of her story before we get the notification in the mail.)  One of the women who works with Molly said she has a beautiful gentle voice when she calls out in the morning, even though she's a feisty little seal.   (Molly is the seal pictured below.)

We took a bit of a scenic route back, along Dingle Bay, and we could see the hills of the "Ring of Kerry" across it.  We drove back off the peninsula to Killarney, where we walked a few of the streets.  Killarney has many shops and pubs that are catering to the large numbers of tourists that pass through there.  Julie asked, but there is no Christmas store in Killarney.  We looked in a few of the shops and eventually had dinner at a Subway.  We then went back to Tralee, where we are staying.  We were hoping to be able to go to a movie tonight, but everything we wanted to see (Smurfs 2, Percy Jackson 2, or Wolverine) was already done showing for the day.  We went back to the place we are staying tonight to lounge and enjoy the space we have here.