Just a note to yesterdays entry: The local dancing event we attended was lovely! We've never seen such a joyful public event anywhere else. Old and young were dancing alongside the lake (Lough). As must-see for everyone who's coming to Cork.

We started off shortly after breakfast, heading east towards Midleton wanting to visit the old distillery there. Upon entering the visitors center we were informed that the guided tours do not start at 10:00 as announced in our Ireland guide but instead at 10:30. As we would have to wait for a full hour at the entrance we decided to dump the distillery and head back towards Cork to visit the Fota Wildlife Park. There's currently heavy construction going on around the park in order to extend the habitats of the animals there but it never really interfered with the wildlife experience. We were among the first visitors of the park that day and so we had the chance to see a fairly large group of Maras right by the entrance, having their breakfast

Leaving the park we took a 5 minute drive to Barryscourt Castle. It's free to visit and the guided tours that start off about every 15-30 minutes are also free and very informative. We asked one of the guides there for the best place to eat in the area and during the conversation she mentioned that we may be disappointed by our next planned destination: Blarney House. She mentioned a boat-ride to Skellig Rock off the coast of the Ring Of Kerry. So we ditched Blarney House and headed directly to Kilarney. There our hostess at the B&B phoned someone in Portmagge to see if places aboard one of the boats would be available. Sadly all boats were booked out.

Now our plan is to go to Dingle to take the "Fungi" boat-ride there to see some dolphins and then take Connors Pass up to Ennis.

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