Ireland. Day Six.

 Too many gorgeous things encountered today to not throw up a blog post.

We're in Ireland, in County Kerry. This is our 6th day. 

We're on our way to the Uragh Stone Circle outside Kinmare. It's only 3.5 km off a main road out of town, but the land is so up-and-down and the road so curvy - and narrow! - that it feels like it takes a long while to get there.

We're surrounded by big, looming hills with a lot of lichen-covered, exposed rock in a tilted, layercake formation, covered in huge tufts of grasses. Sheep abound.

We're almost there. The skies loom. 

When we finally get to the stone circle, we park next to a couple of other vehicles on the side of the road, next to a lake. Two guys next to us are getting ready to go fishing. There's a couple already headed up the hill toward the stone circle, which we can't see from here. We follow them up, pausing at the top of the hill to take in where we've just come from:



We give the couple ahead of us some space, by hiking up to a vantage point on a slight rise about 50 yards away. This gives us a chance to take in the scene. 

There's another lake, not visible from the parking area. Panning from from east to west, both lakes are visible below. So's the stone circle: look for bright dot, at center of of picture - it's the woman's raincoat:

Here's a close-up of that view - notice the waterfall...

The setting was more dramatic than even these pictures can show - huge, rugged hills, and a great wind with a light rain starting up.

Soon, the couple who'd gotten there first left, and we walked down the hillock to the circle.

I walked all the way around it first. Here's looking south/southeast...

 It's quite small, maybe a couple meters wide. One big stone, five smaller ones. 

A bit more south-ish...

We hung out for a while, mesmerized by the ruggedness of the landscape.

Finally, we left, and made our way in a gusting rain through Killarney National Park. 

It was so socked in with bad weather that we missed seeing these apparently legendary and epic views.  "Ladies View" is so striking that a local supermarket in neighboring Killarney has it as a mural in its windows. 

When you can't see much of anything like that, you're free to pay attention to the rest of what's happening, like the most incredible collection of trees I've seen in a long while.

What captured me the most were the oaks. 

At one point, getting progressively soaked, we hiked half a kilometer to a waterfall. The closer we got to it, the more spectacular they got. I could swear they were sentient. I've read a lot about trees lately (most recently, Hope Jahrens' "Lab Girl") and it just seemed impossible that these trees would not be aware of one another via all the various means trees communicate - intertwined roots, chemical signaling, sprinkle in some magic for good measure: basically, my mind was blown. 

We'll start with this gigantic oak - note the two people for scale.

Then there's this one:

Gaaaahhhhh....

And the moss! And the ivy: At the foot of another one:

So much moss - this tree was this mossy, all the way up (hello, Kevin!):

This next one, I wonder what happened to make it take this shape. No real idea. It does sort of look like more than one tree, smushed together.

It was seeing the following three together, that got me to thinking of the degree to which they might be aware of one another. 

The only way to begin to fit the whole thing in is to go sideways; thank you, Kevin, for showing the scale...

And the shapes! Every time I saw a new one, I'd feel electricity coursing through me. I was so amazed at everything we were seeing.

Don't worry, this next one appears to be doing just fine, horizontally:

Whew. That wasn't even all the day. But it's all I'm going to post about for now.