Macgillicuddie's Reeks and Portmagee

The second half of the trip is based at Portmagee on the north coast of the Iveragh Peninsula opposite Valentia Island so to get there, although it was only just over the water from Dingle, we had to go back up the Dingle 'finger' and down the Iveragh 'finger' with various diversions such as the Ring of Kerry and Kate Kearney's cottage on the way. We were planning to meet Ken's wife Bettie, who is also a geologist, and a colleague, Pat Meere who is a structural geologist, at KK's cottage at lunchtime so there was time for a potter along the coast during the morning.
A wander outside before breakfast showed preparations for a music festival in Dingle that weekend but we turned our backs on the fleshpots, packed up the cars and headed off to Kilmurry Bay where I'm afraid the boulder beach defeated me (and a few others) but most went on down to have a look at the coastal section at the eastern side where large scale, cross-stratified pinky-red aeolian sandstones are exposed in the cliffs. Ken is a brilliant leader though and had a road cut in his back pocket where we stopped to look at something similar: there were steep avalanche faces and, amazingly, Cruziana tracks where beasties had scuttled across the face of the dunes. Trevor the climber came into his own here and obligingly scuttled up the face of the cutting and hung on with his fingernails while we took photos with 'Trevor for scale'. Oh and as first spotter of a trace I got bought a Guinness that night by Ken!
Several road cuts with well planned laybys opposite allowed us to have a good look at the absolutely beautiful Inch conglomerate and the overlying Lough Slat conglomerate. The Inch conglomerate is the result of erosion of high grade metamorphic rocks and contains stunning mica schist clasts. The metamorphoic rocks were thrust upwards along the Dingle Bay lineament, forming a ridge which was eroded, producing extensive fanglomerates. The Lough Slat conglomerate is totally different with white vein quartz and red jasper pebbles and derived from the opposite direction and unconformable on the Loch Inch C.
On then, past Inch spit (always a windy place to bathe apparently but good for surfing) to the Iveragh Peninsula and soon we saw an awesome cleft in the hills ahead of us - this is the Gap of Dunloe which we were going to explore. We met up with Bettie and Pat, had the local version of chowder in KK's C and then headed on up the valley. The road is 'recommended' not for cars as the local attraction is pony and trap drives up and back but there still seemed to be a lot of cars which we rather objected to as we were on shanks pony. The exception was a wedding group who were in high spirits - we felt they deserved a good place for their photos!
It is a very long road..... and rather hard under foot.... and I think the best bits were near the start really where we saw good faulting and thrusting and signs of stress in these northward thrust rocks. The Gap cuts neatly through, perpendicular to the direction of thrusting and is a good cross section route. Lovely lakes with water lilies coming into leaf and the grass was speckled with butterwort in flower,
On then to Portmagee. We needed to get a bottle of whisky to give to Ken that evening and had, stupidly, forgotten it at the supermarket stop earlier so had to drop out and search the small shops along the way. Unfortunately Tony, who was on his motorbike, stopped too to get fuel and we went on without him! Then it bagan to rain - only rain of the trip... and we had a plaintive phone call from Tony. Well we set him on his way, and went on to the hostel to get the others settled in (they had more or less done it) and then went back to meet our lost sheep who by this time had headed on over the bridge onto the island.. NO Tony! We got him back and thought he was following us but it was mere coincidence so there was a sort of Keystone Kops chase up and down Portmagee High Street before we finally got him!
Nice after that to have a proper sit down restaurant meal to look forward to - bit hard on the pocket mind, but very much enjoyed the taster plate of local sausages as well as our main course.
Tomorrow - the tetrapod tracks!