Sheep’s Head Peninsula Walk to Lighthouse

We decided to drive around the Sheep’s Head Peninsula to enjoy a walk to the Lighthouse after we visited Sheep’s Head Yarns. We reached Kilcrohane about 30 minutes before they closed Sheep’s Head Yarns on the last day of the Sheep’s Head Yarn Festival.

We’d missed the primary yarn market, but I bought two skeins of hand-dyed sock yarn by Strand Designs from the Sheep’s Head Shop. 

One is called Clover and is very similar in colour to my holiday knitting socks project. I’m knitting socks using a matching set of Knit Circus self-striping yarn, which I’d received as a Christmas present from Neil. I’ve further shown a photograph of my finished Knit Circus socks in this post.

The other is called Lighthouse, and the colours relate closely to the colours of the Sheep’s Head Lighthouse, as I soon discovered, although this was probably not intentional. Sheep’s Head Yarns will be open throughout the summer, so visit the shop, which sells items made by local craftspeople, if you are lucky enough to visit West Cork. (The yarn at the front in the photograph below is the Clover colourway, and the skein behind it is the Lighthouse colourway).

On leaving Kilcrohane, we drove towards Sheep’s Head and the Lighthouse. We parked at Tooreen and had a cold drink and a coffee. Neil enjoyed a delicious slice of home-baked coffee cake drizzled with fresh cream with his coffee.

We ate our cheese and pickle sandwiches in the car, as it was very windy, then set off for the 2km walk to the Lighthouse. It was a lovely walk and an ultra-cute little lighthouse at the end of it.

Although I must say, it felt much longer than 2km. It was very windy and steep on the way back from the Lighthouse.

A lot of steps uphill and walking into the wind to get back to the car park.

And the views were breathtaking. This was the sea and sky taken from the Lighthouse at the tip of the Sheep’s Head Peninsula.

Neil photographed the same sheep going down and then as we were walking back up the steep, stony path, much to the annoyance of the ewe who kept telling her lamb to hurry up. Of course, it didn’t!

We drove back to Kilcrohan and approached Goats Head, passing Eileen’s Pub. We stopped to enjoy the view at Seefin.

Then, we drove along the top side of the peninsula along part of the Wild Atlantic Way. Stunning views. It was after 8 pm, and ‘Thomasina’ decided on the quickest route and then proceeded to take us through narrow, meandering roads for 1 1/2 hours… Some of them could barely be described as roads in some places!

Of course, I was working on my Knit Circus Socks using Knit Circus Gradient Sock Yarn while travelling in the car, as a passenger, and spending most of my time watching the beautiful scenery, which meant they weren’t quite as perfectly matching as they should have been! I forgot the number of rows I’d knit for the cuff on sock number one and knit two fewer rows on sock number two. (I had written the number down in my notebook, but I wouldn’t say I like reading while in a moving car, so I failed to check). To ensure the overall length would be the same, I knit two extra rows for the leg on sock number two. Luckily, you don’t see the cuffs when wearing socks.

I asked Neil to pull into a carpark overlooking the sea so I could pick up stitches for the heel flap. (Some things can’t be done in a moving car!) These little errors are the consequence of knitting while looking at the beautiful views. These tiny mistakes will bring back memories every time I wear the socks I knit on my journey to Kerry and our drive around Sheep’s Head Peninsula. The photograph above is of my finished Knit Circus Socks photographed at the Burren in County Clare.