We're in Ireland! Land of green and Guinness…
After a week with Geoff in Munich and Lucy staying on at Grendon (in Devon), we met up at Dublin Airport and headed west with Allan Versfeld (one of Geoff's closest friends, living in Dublin) to Galway city where we met up with Deirdre, Allan's (better) half.
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| Geoff and Allan |
The 4 of us spent a lovely day exploring the Connemara area (counties Galway and Mayo). The Connamara is a wildish area on the west coast where Irish is predominately spoken (instead of English with an Irish accent - we can't understand, let alone read, Irish). The coastline is wonderfully rugged with thousands of inlets and rocky outcrops which must make navigation by boat a nightmare! Really stunning scenery though with little houses scattered around, very furry sheep and cows and of course stone walls everywhere that you look!
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| Tidal inlets of the coast of Connemara |
Stopped for lunch at the beautiful holiday village of Roundstone where there is traditional yacht racing in the summer. Then winding on along the coast to the town of Clifden - one of the bigger towns in the area. From there we headed inland into a more mountainous area with many lakes (or loughs), some of which are huge! We were amazed by the stone walls that seem to run straight up the mountains! We drove along many beautiful lake and inlet edges with ruined abbeys and little villages, through the area where The Field was filmed and through boggy meadows where peat turf is being cut by locals (more about this in another post).
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| The harbour at Roundstone. Connemara mountains in the background. |
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| The sea was an amazing colour! (note: sun might be out, but don't be fooled! its FREEZING!) |
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| Geoff, Deirdre and Allan in Clifden |
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| Checking out what dried peat turf looks like. |
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| The peat bog trampoline.... |
It was lovely to be out in such a beautiful area - quite wild and untamed, and to experience it with good friends!
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| Spot the stone wall going up the mountain.... |
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| Dry stone walls with yellow gorse. |
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| The Connemara National Park. |
The Connemara is awesome! We sat on pretty much the same spot as Geoff at Roundstone harbour, eating clam chowder from a nearby fish shop. However, you might have missed 2 really cool activities - the mountain/hill behind the town is cool to climb (great views) and there is also a Bodhran workshop just nearby where you can have a good go on the instruments. There is just so much to see - really envious. LOVE Ireland.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, please say hi to Allan for us. We had a great time with him last year, but since then, our correspondence has become slack... would be great to make contact with him again.
I hope that you will also be heading south to the Killarney national park. You MUST do the boat trip across the Killarney lakes with bikes, then cycle back to Killarney through the Gap of Dunloe. One of my favourite things in Ireland.