The Great Killarney Escapade

Killarney is a beautiful national park complete with a picturesque castle, an old abbey, its own waterfall, and a mountainous (or as mountainous as Ireland gets) landscape. Sounds like a wonderful time, doesn't it?

We rented bikes and decided to go around what I thought was a hilly trail of about ten miles. Granted, I haven't been on a bike for about two years, but I thought it wouldn't be that bad.

What they don't tell you is that the path ascends from about twenty feet to about eight hundred feet, and you get to bike up that. That "hill" kicked my butt. Badly. Another interesting discovery was the fact that the trail isn't really clearly marked by signs. So you can go about three miles out of your way to turn around again.

Another fun fact was about seven hours into the biking trip is another hill. Only this hill has a windy path to the top. At this time I firmly decided I was a much better walker than a biker and walked my bike up the hill. While going down the hill was a hoot, the experience was slightly marred by the flat tire at the end. It's not like we were still ten miles away from town or anything. Oh wait, we were. Luckily, we were able to call a cab back into town, but we were too late to make the bus back to Limerick. We had to catch the morning bus back, and I had to run to make it to my noon Accounting class.

Still, the experience wasn't all bad. Killarney is beautiful, and the town is very cute. Because we biked twenty miles, we figured we deserved some delicious Chinese food and ice cream. The hostel we stayed at was run by two delightful Australians who let us stay the extra night for free in our own room. And the taxi driver showed us that famous Irish friendliness. And I learned that I am at heart a walker, not a bike person.