Tuesday, 12th August       GALWAY BAY - ENNISCRONE

Robyn writes: Or should that last name read: Inniscrone, or even Inishcrone?! Honestly, the Irish are as varied in their spelling as the Egyptians! I spent ten minutes fighting with the satnav this morning wondering why it kept saying no such place existed. I tried every variation on the spelling until finally I tried "Inniscrone". Bingo! The really funny thing was it brought up a map with the "Enniscrone" spelling on it....and then when we were nearly here, we saw a turnoff to "Inishcrone" and bingo again, that's our town. Talk about multiple personalities. Anyway, we are here!

We were up around 8 and were the first ones down to breakfast - a gloomy and rainy morning so it was all too easy to keep sleeping. We had a last lovely breakfast provided by Mary (excellent fruit salad and yoghurt) and finished our packing before paying her and heading off a bit before ten. It's another of those rainy/not rainy days with a top temp so far of about 20 - but still very overcast and likely to rain again any moment.

Goodbye to Summerville House (that's our hire car in front)

A genuine Irish rainbow (no idea if there was a pot of leprechaun gold at the bottom though...)

We headed north from Galway and had a fairly easy trip compared to Saturday's - it's only about 140 km so not too far, and the roads were quite good. Also we've noticed that the villages and towns up in the north tend to have slightly better laid out streets and they are a bit wider, so that helps with congestion. And, of course, it's not Saturday! We left County Clare and drove through County Mayo - some very pretty countryside.

We stopped at Knock to visit the shrine there - this is a HUGE Catholic church site with an old church, massive newish (built in the mid 70s) 'basilica', several chapels, a massive Celtic cross blessed by John Paul II when he visited Ireland, and surrounded by heaps and heaps of religious souvenir shops, selling everything from crucifixes to grave goods and zillions of bottles to put your holy water in. It's amazing; we've never seen anything like it before. The story is that on an evening in August 1879, fifteen locals saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary, St Joseph and St John the Evangelist at the back of the local church. The vision lasted for two hours while the townspeople stood in the pouring rain reciting the Rosary. This is why the shrine is there, and the nicest part is at the back of the old church where they've built the Apparition Chapel. I have to say that the huge new church or basilica is rather horrid. What on earth possessed them to build it out of concrete blocks when Ireland is full of wonderful stone??? Inside, it's painted pink and purple which did nothing for us, either. After seeing the wonders of St Paul's and Westminster Abbey and some brilliant Victorian churches, it's a shame this is so ordinary. One chapel at the back of the site set into the hill resembles nothing so much as a concrete WWII bunker! We also were a bit bemused by the Holy Water fountains - a whole line of them, where you buy your bottle, fill it up and have that to take away. Several people had big ten litre containers so they were obviously stocking up...I'm fairly sure there's nothing like this in Australia. It was certainly very different and apparently is a huge centre for pilgrims.

Basilica at Knock

Holy water dispenser

The Apparition Chapel at the back of the old church which is where the apparition occurred

Holy water bottles - all shapes, all sizes! The shops around the site are full of these.

We stopped at Foxworth in Mayo for lunch at the Foxworth Woollen Mills - this is a thriving business with a huge shop full of lovely things and a cafe where we had a delicious lunch - I had the cream of carrot soup and the nicest brown soda bread I've had in Ireland (it often tends to be dry but this was soft and yummy) and Lex had a salmon and leek tart with vegetables. He's eaten so much seafood lately his omega levels must be through the roof! We had a look around the shop but regretfully didn't buy anything there, then headed for Enniscrone in County Sligo, another 24km away.

We arrived here around 2 and were able to book in straight away - we have a huge room but it is on the ground level so we look out at the main street! Probably why it was on special...oh well, it is certainly very comfortable. Enniscrone is up near the border of Northern Ireland, at the bottom of an inlet and looking north to the Atlantic. I imagine that the inlet gives a nice sheltered bay. It's obviously a real seaside attraction here with surfing and lots of beachy type shops. Amazing in cold and rainy Ireland!

Lex had a nice nap this afternoon while I caught up on emails etc, then I went out for a walk to check out the surrounds and look for somewhere nice for tea. Once I'd hauled him out of his rest, we headed out for a very refreshing walk down to the harbour wall - in a very stiff breeze, straight off the Arctic (literally). There were all of these mad people swimming and surfing and there we were in our winter jackets done right up to the neck! We did have a lovely walk though and admired the fishing crowd down on the pier and the kids leaping off into the water before heading back up to "A Spicy Affair" for the early bird special (15 Euros for 2 courses and a magnificent meal). We shared a chicken Korma and a vegetable Balti with rices and naan, then Lex had the sticky toffee pudding and I had lemon sorbet. We are still sooo full. The only hassle came when the young girl (obviously new at her job and there alone) couldn't get our card to work in the machine, so we ended up paying cash for the meal. I was a bit worried about it though, so checked our account when we got back to the hotel, and sure enough, there were 2 transactions pending....so it was straight back there. Luckily the manager was there and gave us a cash refund. It proves you really do have to check your accounts though - it would be all too easy on holiday to miss that (especially if it was like last week where we just couldn't get onto the internet.)

Enniscrone beach with mad swimmers!

We preferred warmer clothing...

Fishing and swimming off the pier

Glorious desserts - sticky toffee pudding and lemon sorbet. Yum!

Anyway, we are now veging out and are absolutely full of very good food. Tomorrow is our only day in this area so we have to decide what we want to do and cross our fingers for good weather!