Road trip 2
We had a week over in the west to doss about. Thankfully and by some miracle the weather was uncharacteristically amazing. The plan was to spend two days in galway and then pretty much play it by ear. But there were ideas of climbing in the Burren, session in westport and horse riding in Conemara. But first task for the week was this little chap
This floppy eared fella's name is Sandy. He's a lurcher who was stray for a few months with a broken leg around Sandyford insutrial estate and who some rescue people spent weeks, day and night, trying to capture. Being a bit of a wild sort he wasnt getting on very well in the local rescue with all the noise and the other dogs so a foster home was arranged in Galway to take him in. Now thisguy is a bit of an escape artist so the operation was pretty surgical to transfer hime from car to car to car. But he ended up getting to his new home without any bother and is now being fussed over by two lady greyhounds.
So..onto the trip..
I love Galway. Its the perfect mix of hippy dont give a shit and coastal dont give a shit. Boats! water! itll be grand
Ok so I took pictures of a lot of boats
BOATS!
After Galway we took the road accross Conemara to Clifden to do some pony treking. The view of the 12 pins was indescribable but there just wasnt anywhere to pull over an take some good shots. so youre just going to have to use your imagination.
We treked over the peninsula just south of Clifden and famous for the first Marconi transatlatic station and the crash landing of Alcock and Brown on the first non stop transactlatic flight.
The horses we got were a wee bit tempermental. Nollys tried to eat her foot and buck her off. mine tried to roll over with me on his back, just managing to jump away at the last minute. The trek passed several famine cottages and tryignto explain that to the french tourists behind mainly consisted of saying 'pas de pomme de tere' several times to their utter confusion.
After that we went straight up to westport for some grub and into Matt Malloys for a session. Was glad to see the legendary Mick Lavelle still entertaining the troups and glad i could share a song (one of his own) with him. Weirdly, a bus full of American tourists arrived, piled into the back room set up amps (harummph!) and had their own, private, session in the back. Pretty weird and a bit rude we thought. Here you are in the legendary Matt molloys and you bring your own music??? some people.
But in saying that we were so tired after the horses that we werent long for the pub ourselves and we had a long trip ahead of us the next day.
This time i was determined to get some decent shots of Conemara. So here we go
Croagh patrick as youve never seen it. On a clear day. The white trail is the pilgramage trail what zombie worshippers use to go up and get mass on paddys day instead of being in the pub like respectable people. Out of shot is the millions of snake bones Paddy dumped into wesport.
Sheeps! and what i suspect could be a crannog
This time i was nervously doing the driving but that did mean i could stop off and select picture locations.
This is the fuck long estuary at Leenane. A lovely little spot containing most bizarly of all, a seaweed bath!
Next was a nice stop off at Lough Corrib for a rest
See Nolly was there too!
Next stop was the Village of Cong. Now if im honest i didnt know an awful lot about Cong, it was mainly somewhere to stop and have a snack. They also had a townland nearby called Carrowkeel, which i misstook for teh more famous megalithic cemetary also called carrowkeel. This is somethign that happens quite a lot in the west of Ireland
Cong though, Is gorgeous
Its the town where they filmed The quiet man staring arch racist and total gimp John Wayne, and youd never know it.
While looking for Carrowkeel we did discover that there were some stone circles nearby. Five in total, all practically in the same field. I've never seen a cluster of stone circles like this, passage tombs yes, but never circles.
Plus they were called Glebe stone circles. Which if you were paying attention was the old Gaelic name for a sort of dreadlocks.
The teeniest stone circle with the traditional willow trees.
I accidentally destroyed a rotten tree stump inside this one. lucky im not supersticious.
Thereon we drove to the lovely, fantastic Doolin
Which gave me a chance to go out in the middle of the night to do some night photography
It was my first attempt to pick up stars of any type so I've learned some lessons and the next one will be better
Next day was climbing. The crag was easy enough to find and it was such a privilidge climbing in the burren. Definetely have to do that again
mmmmm delicious limestone
Nolly rocking up the first VS of the years
Me being a blouse and top roping a severe.
Now the plan for the next day was to go to Innis Mór and explore dun aengus and various other places but in true father ted style. it was closed. the whole island. until easter. jaysus!
So we decided since they have completely ruinned the cliffs of moher that we would take the boat trip around the bottom of the cliffs and get a different perspective. First we met this little girl
Bit of a camera whore this one. was great watching her scratch her belly against the underside of the boat and playign with a bit of plastic she likes to keep handy
see.
Puffin!
Aparantely there were supposed to be some basking sharks around the sea stack but none could be seen.
and then we sped away.
Phew that was long!