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DIARY OF TRIP (2)
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DAY 8 -- BALLINSKELLIGS TO DINGLE
The weather dawned much better, and we took a short walk around the
village, a very messily laid-out place but with some great views.
We offered the German girls a ride to Caherciveen, where they could get a
bus to Cork at the end of their trip. They demurred, but we said we had
plenty of room. But when we saw their luggage we wondered if we had been
wise. As well as the usual backpacks, one of them had a large suitcase on
wheels, which was incredibly heavy!! Now we realised why they had arrived
by taxi rather than hitching! Clearly they had not visited any travel
websites for advice on packing before travelling!
The route took us round the end of the peninsula with some fine views,
including over to Valentia island.
After stocking up on food at Caherciveen, we decided not to continue
round the Ring of Kerry (a highly popular tourist route, with streams of
coaches that take up more than half the road width), but drove along a
much more peaceful inland route. The weather improved sufficiently to
give us a splendid view of MacGillicuddy's Reeks, Ireland's highest
mountain group (1038m).
We wished we had more time for this area, but we couldn't do everything
in two weeks. The clouds were closing in again, and in mid-afternoon rain
started, subsequently continuing for nearly 24 hours. We gave a lift to 2
German girls who were hitching. In Dingle we had booked at the Rainbow
Hostel, and the girls were happy to be dropped there also. It was
difficult to find, and we took several wrong turnings. It turned out to
be 20 minutes walk from town, and the girls decided after a look round to
leave and find a more fun hostel in the centre of town. In the foul
weather at the time it did have a rather depressing look. The guests were
mainly a German school student group who had reason to be self-contained
having just finished an arduous hiking/camping tour; their teacher was
very pleasant and chatty.
In the evening we looked at the pubs where it was said there would be singing, but at the one we chose, it was amplified so much, with bass that went through you even after you had moved to the other end of the pub, that it was positively unpleasant. We moved on to another recommended pub, O'Flaherty's, with a much pleasanter atmosphere and acoustic musicians. We talked with two jovial German couples who were staying in a B&B. They wanted to take home a glass labelled "Murphy's" because they had a cat called Murphy. However, the pub had none to spare. The following evening we again had to leave an over-amplified pub and ended up at O'Flaherty's.
DAY 9 -- DINGLE
It was a wild and rainy night. The German student group were camping in
the hostel grounds, and were not amused to end their trip in such
weather. We were comfortable in the hostel, but were very annoyed at
breakfast to find the gas was not working. The manager came in at 0910h
and simply said "Oh, it's been turned off", and turned it on again
without apology. The rain and strong wind continued, but we decided to go
for a drive anyway, around the tip of the peninsula, the westernmost
point in Europe. We took a brief walk to one of the hundred or so stone-
age sites, 'beehive houses'. There was some glorious scenery, even though
we could not see the hills. We parked and walked down to a lovely beach,
but we could not face walking to the exposed headland. Instead we spent
some time in a visitor centre which had posters and a video describing
the interesting history of Great Blasket Island, where numerous literary
visitors went around 1900 to learn the Irish language. The island was
evacuated in 1953 as its population had gradually drifted away. We met
there one of the ladies we had met at Schull hostel, who had a grant from
the University of Toronto to do research into one of the literary figures
of the island.
As we continued our drive the weather eased, and we did take a walk along another headland getting some lovely views of bays and hills, improved by the varying cloudscapes. We could see the other small rocky islands, including the Skelligs which we had been near on the previous day.
DAY 10 -- DINGLE TO DOOLIN
This travelling day started with a drive over the Connor Pass which should give some spectacular views, but everything was fogged in. The drive continued along the northern side of the Dingle Peninsula which seemed quite pleasant but not exciting. After shoppoing in Tralee (an ordinary crowded city on a Saturday morning) we drove to the ferry at Tarbert which took us over the wide Shannon estuary for a reasonable fee. The southern half of County Clare was a little dreary, and we eventually arrived at Doolin. At the first road junction with about 20 signs on it, the hostel we had booked in was fortunately within sight. The Aille River is an excellent hostel with a very friendly and helpful manager, a pleasant common/dining room with large dining tables and a radio/cd player, and a kitchen which was well-equipped but got crowded at times. There were also picnic tables, a small car park and camping field just outside, right by a stream rushing under a stone road bridge. It had free internet, which meant that you had to wait quite a while to use it, and when I did there seemed to be a fault on Yahoo and I could not access my email account (Grr!).Doolin has 2 pubs 500m away to the N, and another 400m away to the S. It is a tiny village that is growing as you look, with about 50 'holiday homes' currently under construction. We went to the most recommended pub, McGann's, didn't like the feel of it and tried McDermot's, where we met up with a group of 4 delightful Belgian girls who were camping at our hostel. We stayed there to listen to some good music with a few songs included.
DAY 11 -- CLIFFS OF MOHER
The weather was superb, and we walked along the field path near the
cliffs which gradually rose in height. The path was good in places, hard
going in others with very marshy bits. We missed the best route and found
ourselves on a busy road on which we had to walk for 1 km to arrive at
the visitor centre. After meeting only 2 people on the walk, we now met
hundreds all at once as they (we?) snaked like ants up the path from the
car park to the cliff edge.
Yes, the cliffs are very impressive. So much that every visitor to
Ireland has to see them. We walked along the edge
to an even higher point where only 10% of the tourists go, sat there for
lunch, where we had a beautiful view across Galway Bay to the Connemara
mountains 60 km away.
We then followed the cliff path back towards Doolin. This took a little
care, because in places the track was on the cliff edge and had eroded
away, so we had to cross the fence on to a newer track. On the walk back
we saw only 6 people, 4 of whom were the Belgian girls who were going
where we had gone.
That evening we looked at the pubs again, didn't like the atmosphere in
McGann's, and the band in McDermot's tonight was amplified and loud and
not attractive. So we walked to the other end of the village and found
that Connor's had pleasanter acoustic music. Here we met a couple from
Brighton. On our walk back at about 2330h we met the Belgian girls
walking to the sea. They said they dropped in at the pub later and found
the atmosphere not congenial for a group of young girls, and quickly
left.
DAY 12 -- INISHERE
We wanted to go to the Aran Islands, and decided on the nearest one, Inishere. While waiting for the boat we met the Brighton couple we had talked to in the pub yesterday. They were going to the main island, Inishmore. Then we met Stefanie from Edmonton whom we had seen arriving in our hostel the previous evening. We enjoyed talking, and we explored the island together. Inishere is fairly flat and has a number of items of interest including a wrecked ship from the 1960s and the usual ruined castle. It was good to sit on the beach and watch the waves, while looking across the sea at the Cliffs of Moher. The landscape included a lot of limestone which had been built up into drystone walls with the stones laid vertically, which looked totally wrong to my eyes, being familiar with the limestone walls of Northern England! We returned after 3 hours; the return sailing was quite rough, and the next day sailings were cancelled because of the wind.It was pleasant to visit this small island (about 2km long), since it was
the only island we went to on the trip, but not greatly exciting. Perhaps
to visit the main island and stay the night would leave more of an 
impression, although I fear that, like the rest of Ireland, their way of
life is becoming swamped by tourism. The cost of the ferry was pretty
steep (3 companies competed for passengers but all charged the same, 25
euros return for a half-hour journey each way, or 35 euros to Inishmore.)
On our return, one of the two German-speaking Italians in our dorm was playing a flute, on the grassy river bank just outside the hostel, to the pleasure of the Belgian girls. This led to the only impromptu singing session of the trip. We established there was one song that he could play and I had the words of, so we taught the Belgian girls 'Sally Gardens'. They then came up with a delightful 2-part song they had learned in scouts, and I was able to join in.
That evening we decided, for the only time, to eat out. In a very pleasant restaurant we had a very nice meal (no drinks) for 24 euros for two including service. The restaurant was small enough that we talked to a New Zealand couple at the neighbouring table, who seemed to be re- meeting people they had met before. I guess that nearly everyone staying at the 20+ B&Bs would eat out every evening at the 10+ restaurants. We then went to O'Connors pub where the Italians were listening to a flute player. It was too crowded to sit down, then later we saw the Belgian girls come in and we joined them at a quiet table.
DAY 13 -- DOOLIN TO GALWAY
On a day that turned out very warm and windy, we travelled to Galway
after first exploring The Burren, a large area of limestone hills and
limestone pavements. It's unusual, not especially attractive scenery,
with an interesting stone-age Dolmen (burial chamber) comprising a giant
horizontal rock on top of several vertical supports, much older than
Stonehenge.
Afterwards we stopped for lunch at a place, suggested by the hostel
manager Karl, where we could have a short walk, with a broad view across
Galway Bay to Galway on the far side (see picture below).
While here, we met a group on a guided walk. Among the group were the New
Zealand couple we had met in the restaurant, 30 km away, the previous
evening!
In Galway we checked in at the Salmon Weir hostel, where I had stayed in 2000, and was pleased to find it still had its immediate homely atmosphere which it used to have, although it deserves a bit more maintenance. The hostel is in the centre of town and parking is difficult, but the excellent manager, Dominic, showed us a rare free place to put our car close by. Take-out fish-and-chips are uncommon in Ireland, and we were directed to what seemed to be the only one in town, but it was outstandingly good!
DAY 14 -- GALWAY
Our final day, in indifferent weather, we explored Galway and did some shopping. It was disappointing to find that Eyre Square, an attractive tree-lined square forming the visual centre of Galway, was a mess of abandoned construction works and totally fenced off. Apparently the construction firm had gone bankrupt and it had been like that for months.As we sat in the common room in the late afternoon, who should appear at the door but two of the Belgian girls! They had hitched from Doolin, and their two companions were hopefully on their way! They did turn up later.
Dominic was leaving the job next week, and that evening for his farewell do he made an Irish stew for everyone! An excellent meal!
We met quite a few people at this friendly hostel, including a middle- aged Dutch lady Anneka at the hostel, who had been travelling round the world for a year and was in her last days before returning home! She joined us to go to the pub, once again we went to one pub with music which was totally overcrowded, but we then went to one farther from the centre where there was genuine traditional music in a proper relaxed atmosphere. Later, Dominic came in with some hostel guests including the Belgian girls. Anneka confirmed my impression that the accent of the Belgian girls was definitely not standard Nederlands! During this evening occurred the only impromptu dancing on the trip: one of the hostel guests took one of the Belgian girls and did some simple dance steps to the music. Two other Belgian girls joined in as a second couple. I took the fourth Belgian girl as a third couple. Quite good!
DAY 15 -- GALWAY TO HOME
And so we drove across Ireland back home, on a day that started overcast with light drizzle and steadily got worse to become heavy rain in Liverpool. The road, one of Ireland's main trunk roads, was good in places and slow in others with road works and it passed along the main streets of several busy towns, just as they used to do in England. It took us through the most congested part of Dublin, but then we sped out to the docks. The sail back was rather rough, there was nothing to see outside and the boat was kept cold enough to need outdoor clothing. Arriving in Liverpool, it struck me how grim this city is, but at the same time its chicken and chips are good and very cheap! We reached home just after dark. Nothing bad had happened.
Diary day-by-day (First week)
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