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We got a little lost on our excursion to St. Nectan's Kieve and cut through a few fields, as our sadly wet and dirty feet attested. We did manage to avoid all the cow pats, however, and we eventually found the site of the waterfall, considered a holy place since ancient times. It cost money to view it, which we thought was annoying, but we had come this far!
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Our sad little Barbie cam could not handle the dim lighting of this beautiful waterfall. Go here for more pictures of the waterfall, here for pictures of the scenic walk up to the falls, and here for the hermitage, built over St. Nectan's cell. The hermitage was a good example of the mix of sacred and strange that we found here. The hermitage was filled with gaudy turquoise and purple statues of fertility goddesses, incense, and rhyming prayers to mother earth, and the rock ledges around the waterfall were covered with people's leavings: some sentimental or religious items, such as prayers and tokens, but some random articles, such as concert tickets and graffiti-like notes of "Jenni + Kayla, Best Friends Forever!!", plus what I can only assume was trash, candy wrappers and receipts. If you focused on the waterfall, which you could view only by stepping on rocks into the middle of the water, it was serene and cleansing; but if you looked around, you couldn't avoid the intrusion of humanity, in all its noisy, odd, and endearing qualities. So much for honoring the hermit aspect of St. Nectan's life.
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