Monday, 11th August                                                       GALWAY BAY - THE BURREN - CLIFFS OF MOHER

Robyn writes: We were up aroung half past seven this morning as we wanted to make sure we got away reasonably early for another big drive in the Galway area - this time around the south part of the bay. We headed out around 9 after a lovely breakfast and headed south through Clarinbridge and Kinvara to the road along the bottom of the bay. The weather was fairly like yesterday - sunny and bright one minute; pouring with rain the next. We've learned to expect this up here! The wind was COLD - maximum temperature today was only about 16 or 17 degrees.

We stopped several times to admire the view and take photos when it was clear - we had the occasional good view of the Aran Islands across the bay. The area is dotted with the usual ruins of tower houses - very small castle turrets. It's also the rockiest and stoniest area we've seen so far, and believe me that is saying something! SOOO many stone walls - some of them go right up and over mountains, which we found hard to credit. Who on earth built them? What an effort! We followed the "Wild Atlantic Way" tourist route from Black Head at the point of the bay right down to the Cliffs of Moher. Of course the usual spectacular scenery which got wilder and more rugged as we got closer to the cliffs.

Stone walls, lakes and ocean inlets

Stone walls that go right up and over the mountains!

Atlantic views - you can vaguely make out the Aran Islands behind me

Here we came slap bang across a huge number of tourists - you can't actually get to the cliffs without parking in the designated area and paying (6 Euros each) to walk up to the paths on the cliffs. We looked at the massive traffic jam in and around the parking lot and the crowds thronging the cliff paths and decided that actually we could live quite well having just seen them; we didn't need to climb them!

It was lovely and green where it was protected from the winds

Looking towards the Cliffs of Moher

Exciting excursion that is now the Cliffs of Moher spectacular - we declined it!

Lunch in Corofin

Boat coming into Doolin Harbour


 

So we left the sea and headed back inland to the little town of Corofin, where Lex's Keary and Mullins ancestors came from. We had a nice lunch in the Inchiquin Inn there (our host was a champion stone hurler in his day, judging by the paper cuttings on display - it's apparently a hot local sport!) and went off to check one of the local burial grounds - no Kearys, one Mullins. Then we went to the Genealogical Research place, where the (very bossy) woman in charge spent 10 minutes telling Lex how good they were and it would cost 450 Euros for them to research the family and write it up. He politely declined.

After that, we headed back to Galway - as usual, the road got quite busy the closer we got to the city, so it took a while and it was after 4.30 before we arrived home. Lex went out for a walk while it was (temporarily) not raining and I put my feet up and read for a while.

When he came back, we decided to try Tom Sheridan's Pub a few blocks from here - very, very busy but we managed to get a table. Lex had a very enjoyable seafood linguine and I had a lovely chicken breast with potato bake and veges. We are now very full, veging out and contemplating our trip to County Sligo tomorrow. Moving day again - for the next fortnight we are only staying two or three nights at a time so we can see as much of the countryside as possible.