17 October 2008: Today I rode to the top of a Irish mountain

As part of my whole practice thing, today the goal was to go to the top of one of the nearby mountains, the one with all the radio antennas on it.

So first I rode out to the sea, then through Blennerville, a little hamlet outside of Tralee, and the the rest of the way it was just very small, narrow country roads. Paul showed me the route before I left, but my only real land mark affirming that I was on the right road was Scotia's Grave.

As some of you probably know, what is today Scotland was actually called Pictland previously, being inhabited by Picts. The Picts were native Celtic Britons that never fell under Roman rule. [Pop culture refernce: think of Pink Floyd's song "Several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a Pict" off Umma Gumma]. Anyway, the Scots were Irish invaders that began colonizing south western Pictland and soon took over the whole damn place; thus Scotland.

Although in reality this process took several centuries, in Irish legend the invaders were led by one Queen Scotia, who is apparently supposed to be buried here in Kerry for some reason. So as Scotia's Grave was my one big land mark, I was happy see the sign for it:



So I opted to pull off and take a look, but just saw a whole lot of nothing:

Where's Scotia - to the left:



Where's Scotia - to the right:



I spent a few minutes looking around for some trace, but saw nothing and knowing that I had to make it to the top of the mountain, I just moved on. Later I learned that you have to hike down some ravine and then it isn't all that once there. However, no knowing what to look for or where to look, I could have spent the rest of the day wandering around aimlessly; so I made the right decision.

And off I went the rest of the way up the mountain. I just kept going until the road turned downward, going down the otherside. There was a small parking area there where I took a break before coming back to Tralee:

The radio towers from the top of the mountain:



The view south, toward Killarney was simply breathtaking and this crappy photo does it no justice at all:



And Tralee, where I had come from, from the top of the mountain:





I am very tired and going to sleep now...