day 9: Cloghane to Castlegregory

location: Cloghane to Castlegregory
distance: 11.79 miles
entertainment: A Wise Man's Fear
sights: gobs and gobs of beach with a smattering of holiday-makers, jellyfish stranded on the beach
lodging: Castle House B&B
dining: fried chicken, cheese sandwich, Lucozade and sweets from Spar; pizza from a family restaurant in the high street

route: not unlike day nine of our Camino, the road from Cloghane to Castlegregory was hot and unremarkable. except for the miles of sand we traversed along Cloghane Bay -- nothing like that in Spain. it started along narrow and disused country roads; disused because they only lead to Cloghane and out to the end of the peninsula beyond. most holidaymakers took the N over the pass into Dingle ... some of whom we encountered later in the day when we had to walk along a busier highway towards Castlegregory.

the beach was pleasant, though less novel after already spending so much time hiking along beaches on the southern portion of the hike. lots more jellyfish on this stretch, likely because of when we were walking in relation to the tide (around low tide, but coming in, based on the class of surfers attempting to catch the baby waves coming in). poked one of the beached ones -- very dense and wholly un-jelly-like as I recorded it.

we passed a churchyard wherein stood a memorial to a ship lost in Brandon Bay after traveling from "lower California." only a few bodies were recovered from the sea, most of which were interred in a tiny church cemetery we happened across on the way to Castlegregory.

rather than hike the "extra" several miles out to the end of the peninsula, we opted to cut straight across and got to Castlegregory quite early in the day, comparatively. our bags, however, had not yet arrived, so after eating our picnic lunch from Spar on the patio of our B&B (which was really just the parking area forecourt) we spent a good while recovering on the quite comfortable double bed upstairs waiting for them to arrive so we could change out of our slimy clothes.

almost as soon as we set foot in Castlegregory, we could tell we'd reentered holiday-making civilization. the Tralee-Dingle road runs close enough to the town to make it worth stopping off and its proximity to one of the largest beaches in Ireland means that the town was fairly crawling with weekend merrymakers. the parking lot of the Spar was jammed at lunchtime, but empty when we walked past later looking for dinner. lots of people in swim gear and sandals; caravans; a pharmacy and corner shop dedicated primarily to beach-related concerns.

after dinner we stopped into a pub near our B&B (where we'd unsuccessfully solicited some dinner) and had a pleasant pint on a pine bar before Saving Private Ryan started up on the television set behind the bar. an consequence of airing whatever was on RTE or TG4 totally at odds with the increasingly boisterous Saturday night revelers. we headed out before the dance party got going, glad for a nice quiet room with the promise of tasty, generous breakfast to set us off in the morning.