Saturday May 18, 2013

We overslept as we didn’t set an alarm.

We woke up at Charlie’s at 9:00am and quickly packed up our things.  Charlie had stayed out late the night before so he was still sleeping, but we had to get going, so we left him a note, said a quick hasta luego to Miguel, and headed to the Library car park.  Luckily we had no ticket or boot on our car, and we headed out toward County Clare.

We drove through Limerick and arrived at the Cliffs of Moher visitor center around 12:00.  We grudgingly paid the 6 EUR/person to park in the car park, packed up our hiking backpack, and made our way to the cliffs.  It was windy and chilly, so we got Melissa a hat at a little shop for 6 EUR.  We bypassed the visitor center, and turned left to make our way to Hag’s Head.  We walked around the Head for a while, and as soon as we turned to head back to the visitor center, the wind picked up.  Big Time.  We lowered our shoulders to the wind and trekked back, explored the visitor center, popped up to O’Brien’s Tower just above the center, and got back to the car at 4:00pm. 

 

 

 

 

We decided to bypass Doolin, and try to make up some ground and possibly give us an opportunity to add some destinations on a future day.  So we drove up into the Burren, a very strange and somewhat eerie piece of Ireland, and stopped in at Caherconnell Stone Fort.  It turned out that 4:30 was the last time to be allowed in, so we headed over to Poulnabrone Dolmen a short distance away.  This was sort of a drive-by destination, but we were still shocked to see a bus full of tourists there at 5:00 checking this place off their lists.  The dolmen was cool, although less impressive in size than we were expecting, so we ourselves checked off our trip list and headed to Galway.

 

We learned another lesson today: BOOK LODGING IN A TOURIST TOWN ON A SATURDAY NIGHT AHEAD OF TIME!!! 

After searching most of College Road for a room at a Bed and Breakfast to stay at, searching several hostels, and resorting to an internet search, we found a room at Carrig B&B a pretty good distance out of town with a woman called Mary.  She allowed us to use her washer and dryer, so after filling the machine we headed to the Galway Plate for pizza and potato skins, costing 27 EUR.  Heading back to the B&B we set up Skype to try and get a hold of Mary and Lily, but we were unsuccessful.  We left 70 EUR on the bed-side table the following morning, and thanked God that we found couchsurfing hosts the first three nights!