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INCH AND ANASCAUL |
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Though most of the peninsula's delights are to the west of Dingle
town, there are a few notable stopping points on your way to Dingle town
from the east. First of these is The Phoenix Organic Vegetarian
Restaurant & Farmhouse Accommodation (Oct-Easter by appointment only;
tel 066/976 6284; accommodation from £13/¬16.51), three miles west of
Castlemaine village on the Killarney-Dingle road, providing hostel
accommodation with a difference: rooms are decorated with furnishings
from Bali, India and Egypt and the restaurant's menu strikes a similarly
exotic note. You can also camp here, and there's Irish music and set
dancing in The Anvil pub, about one mile away. There's a break in the
shoreline at INCH , where a long, narrow sandbar pushes out into Dingle
Bay. In the eighteenth century, the beach was used by wreckers who, on
stormy nights, would tie a lantern to a horse's head and leave the horse
grazing; mariners mistaking the bobbing light for another ship steered
their vessels aground on the strand. There's B&B accommodation about a
mile east of here at Waterside B&B (tel 066/915 8129; 3). For hostel
accommodation, as you head west take a sharp right after Foley's pub;
after about three miles turn right for the Bog View Hostel , situated
midway between Camp and Anascaul (IHH; closed Sept-May; tel 066/915
8125). Back in Inch, you can hear lively traditional music sessions at
Foley's pub (Saturday year round, summer on Wednesday).
The road turns inland, five miles further west, towards ANASCAUL (
Abhainn an Scáil ), a single street of brightly painted houses, pleasant
enough but with a curiously safe, inland feel considering the proximity
of the wild Atlantic coast. Two pubs here have famous associations: the
magician Dan Foley's shocking-pink bar, familiar from a host of
postcards, and the South Pole Inn , so named by local man Tom Crean, a
veteran of Scott's Antarctic expedition. There are several B&Bs : The
Anchor House (tel 066/915 7382; £33-40/¬41.90-50.79) and Brackluin House
(tel 066/915 7145; £33-40/¬41.90-50.79), both centrally located, and
slightly further out on the road to Dingle, Four Winds (tel 066/915
7168; £33-40/¬41.90-50.79). In addition there's a hostel , Fuchsia Lodge
(IHH; tel 066/915 7150), about two miles east of the village, where it
is also possible to camp . Heading northwards, along a string of
increasingly rough tracks, you'll reach Anascaul Lake, overshadowed by
the scree slopes of Stradbally Mountain: a secretive place, with plenty
of wilder country beyond.
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