Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Day #14, #15 - Doolin, The Aran Islands, Cliffs of Moher, Cararoe, and Creevy

Hola, readers!

I meant to publish this post last night, but unfortunately it didn't work for some reason.  So sorry to keep you waiting, but here it is:


The day before yesterday was personally one of my favorite days of the entire vacation, so I will start with that...

Yesterday morning brought a warm, sunny day in Clifden, which was rather unusual and very lucky.  We packed up some pillows for the long drive ahead, and we were off!


We were on our way to Doolin, where a boat would soon whisk us off to the smallest of the Aran Islands, Inisheer.  It is so tiny that only 250 people populate the island, and 60 are school kids: about 30 in elementary/primary school and 30 in high school/secondary school.

We had a nice view of the countryside during the drive, too:



We arrived at the dock just in the knick of time, as usual.  Here is a picture of our boat, Tranquility:


Excitement was in the air as the island became discernible:


When we stepped foot onto the island, we were amazed.  It was so beautiful!  We saw a kind man who offered to take us on a horse-drawn carriage tour of the island.  Of course we agreed!  

This is the horse who guided our tour.  Her name is Macy.


The tour guide had lived on that island for his whole life, so he knew a lot about the island and shared some interesting information with us.  

Here are pictures of the island.  The fascinating part about those stone walls is that the people who built them didn't use any mortar of any kind;  they just balanced the rocks one by one on top of each other.  The tour guide told us that up to 100 meters (300 feet) of stone wall could be built in a single day!




We visited the nearby beach, which was also very charming.  The rusty ship in the background was shipwrecked in 1960, and they hauled out each survivor one at a time with a bucket.  Later, the boat was robbed of its whiskey, clothes, and copper, and the loot was buried along the beach.  It was quickly dug up before the Customs were clued in.


Plus, there were ruins on the island that are said to have been said to have been built as early as the 4th century:



After that fun adventure, we took another ferry from the island to the famous Cliffs of Moher.  They are ten times as amazing in real life than they are in pictures!  Also, did any of you notice that the background picture of the blog is a photo of the Cliffs?




When we stepped foot on land once again, we were famished.  After a bit of driving around, we found a Kentucky Fried Chicken...in Ireland.


Once our stomachs were full, we got another chunk of driving out of the way.  

We stopped at Cararoe Beach, which is one of the three coral beaches in Ireland.  Its "sand" is made entirely out of little pieces of coral!

Did I mention that we went to this beach at 10:30 at night?



Then, we finished the journey home and went to bed as soon as we arrived.

Now onto yesterday:

The morning was filled with the sound of things being shoved into suitcases, as we were saying good-bye to our home in Clifden and saying hello to our new one in Creevy!

We decided to go shopping one last time in Clifden, and went to a bunch of different stores, including this one:


Then, a few hours later, we arrived at the Creevy Pier Hotel.  They had a restaurant placed conveniently nearby, so we ate some delicious grub there.


We also met our new neighbors:


And that's it!  Thank you for being patient, as I haven't had a whole lot of extra time to work on the blog.  I will try my best to give you all another post today.  

Thanks for reading!


-Megan

2 comments:

  1. Greetings wee Connie-Megan,

    What an awesome adventure you're having! The Cliffs of Moher are so impressive, and really famous, they use them in movies all the time and now you'll recognize them first hand! :)

    About that Inisheer Island, very cool, especially the walls and ruins, but could you imagine growing up with the same 30 kids?...you'd be chomping at the bit to go off to University!

    One question, have you actually seen any shamrocks (four-leaf or otherwise) or are they an American made-up Irish thing?

    Enjoy your last whirl-wind week on the Emerald Isle and we expect a full slide-show presentation when you get back!
    Mags

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  2. Hey O'Megan, just a few questions...

    Pillows?? Where did you get pillows? Did you steal them from the inn? Don't tell me you brought them from home.

    So are all the people that live on Inisheer really small? This wouldn't be a colony of leprechauns now would it?

    You're going to need a bigger boat. Not really a question, but it fit. If it makes no sense to you look it up.

    Hey, that tour guide of yours looks a wee bit tipsy. Are you sure it was safe to ride with him??

    Is that the cliffs that the lemmings throw themselves off of??

    KFC? Really? Couldn't they at least call it O'KFC??

    So I don't see any beer on the breakfast table...again! What's up with that??

    Well you only have a week left so make the most of it. You really don't want to return, the weather here is pretty awful. Sunny, mid 80's, really hideous.

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