After being in the city of Galway
for over two weeks, I thought it was about time I start seeing the rest of
Ireland! So for only €20, I went on a bus tour through the Burren and to the
Cliffs of Moher. I checked the weather before I left, and even the morning had
rain in the forecast, by the early afternoon it was supposed to clear up. In
hindsight, I really should have known better that the weather in this crazy
country has a mind of its own, but I’ll get to that later. We got on the bus at
10:00am amidst a bunch of other tourists, and I thought it was going to be a
straight shot from Galway to the Cliffs and back, that I’d listen to some music
and take a nap on the way there and back, and that I’d be home for a late
lunch. Turns out, we signed up for quite the tour! We stopped 5 times along the
way. We saw Dunguaire Castle, Corcomroe Abbey, Ballyalban Fairy Fort, the
Poulnabrone Portal Tomb in the Burren, and stopped for lunch at a pub in Doolin.
I won’t bore you with the historical details of everything, mostly because I forgot them all, but here are some
pictures!
Dunguaire Castle
Corcomroe Abbey
Corcomroe Abbey
Corcomroe Abbey
The Burren
Poulnabrone Portal Tomb (Sorry about the spots- it was raining pretty hard, I couldn't get a clear picture!)
After lunch, we finally made it to
the cliffs. The only problem was, it was one of the foggiest days I’ve ever
witnessed, and we only had about 50 ft of visibility- that doesn’t amount to
very much when you’re trying to look at 700 ft high cliffs! We had 90 minutes
at the cliffs, and we tried walking along them to see if we could see anything
at all, but the winds were so strong and it was raining and we eventually just
headed back to the bus to go home. I was nearly asleep when our bus driver
started shouting at us, “Hurry up! You’ve got five minutes! The sky is clearing
up! Go get your pictures!” It was a pretty humorous sight, but we all ran off
the bus back to the cliffs, and all I can say is wow. Words and pictures cannot
even come close to capturing the feeling of seeing them in person.
We couldn't see anything!
I think there's supposed to be water down there somewhere?
Hey, it cleared up!
Absolutely breathtaking.
Well that's about it from my bus tour! The next part of my post is going to be about my first hike with the NUIG Mountaineering Club (AKA the first time I truly feared for my life). Preface: I got a little carried
away writing about my hiking experience- it’s over 1,300 words. Feel free to
skip the read and just look at the pics!
I’ve finally experienced my first real
adventure since I got here. Every Sunday morning, the university’s
Mountaineering Club goes somewhere around Ireland to go hiking, and I went with
last Sunday. When I say “hiking”, I fear you might think I went to a national
park and walked up a hiking trail with lots of other tourists. This was
absolutely not the case. I woke up early on Sunday (which if you know me at
all, you know was a difficult enough task on its own), got on a bus full of
other students, drove through the gorgeous countryside of Connemara, and they
dropped us off in front of a mountain. They told us to choose between three
routes: the regular, the medium, and the long. After seeing the intense hiking
gear some of the experienced members had brought along, I went with the regular
to be safe. There were 16 of us in the regular group, and we introduced
ourselves and we had a few from Ireland, a few from the US ranging from LA to
Colorado to South Carolina to New York, a girl from Canada and a girl from
Belgium. We got all bundled up in our hiking boots, waterproof pants (which I
need to go buy before the next hike!), hats and gloves, and set out on our
hike.
It started out easy enough; there was a nice path along a river that we
followed. Then the leaders started talking about finding the best place to
cross the river. Looking around, I didn’t see any bridges, and then I saw them
walking along the riverbed finding spots with large enough rocks to cross on.
Eventually, after a few of them fell in, they managed to find a board that they
balanced across two rocks for us to cross on. As we lined up to cross, huge
gusts of wind mixed with hail came through the river valley, nearly knocking me
into the water! Us rookies found the whole thing pretty intimidating, and I was
thinking this was going to be the craziest part of our adventure. Little did I
know what was to come.
When
everyone made it safely across the river, we started our trek up the mountain.
The actual mountain we climbed was called “Leenane Hill”, but I wouldn’t call a
500 meters (1640 ft) a hill! Especially one that steep- it was nearly vertical
at some points. As we started climbing (it was definitely closer to climbing
than hiking!), every two minutes or so a huge gust of wind (we estimated about
40+ mph) would attack us, and we quickly learned that the best thing to do was
to stop climbing and crouch down as close to the ground as possible unless we
wanted to be knocked off our feet (which did actually happen to me a few
times!). So we got into a routine of climbing a few feet, ducking for cover,
climbing a few more feet, and ducking for cover again. The fact that it had
rained so much the night before wasn’t helping our cause- each of us slipped on
the wet grass at least once, and we were quickly covered in mud. I tried so
hard not to put my hands on the ground, since I was wearing less than
waterproof gloves, but after about 15 minutes, that effort was a lost cause and
I was constantly squeezing my hands into fists to wring the water out. It was
actually better to wear the sopping wet gloves than to take them off, as your
body heat will warm the water and they act as a wind barrier. Regardless, I’ve
never had such cold hands before- and this is coming from a girl that grew up
in Minnesota! During our ascent, I’ve never experienced so many rapid weather
changes. When we first started, the sun had broken through the clouds, and it
was gorgeous out. About 10 minutes later, the clouds rolled back through and we
were being pelted with hail. Another 10 minutes passed, and the sun was back
out. At one point, the sun was out and it was hailing at the same time! This
continued throughout the whole day. Ireland weather is absolutely crazy.
P.S. My pictures don't portray the weather changes at all- I obviously wasn't taking pictures when the wind was knocking me over or I was being attacked by hail!
I was excited that the sun was out :]
The
mountain was very deceiving in that every time we thought we had made it to the
top, it kept going. I’d look at how far up we’d come, and how far we had left,
and be so excited, but then we’d make it over the steep ridge and there’d be
another one! Once we made it about 90% of the way up, we stopped for lunch. All
of us lined up against a big rock that semi-blocked us from the wind, and took
out our bag lunches. Unfortunately, my hands were so close to frozen that I
could barely move my fingers! It took about five times longer than usual to
open a container of yogurt. The leaders passed around chocolate, and I finally
understood why Remus Lupin always gives Harry chocolate after a run-in with
dementors- it really did warm me up! During our stop for fuel, it was actually
really sunny, and the view was absolutely incredible. Until our leaders said,
“Alright, let’s keep going!” and the sky clearly had other plans for us. Within
about 10-20 seconds, huge grey clouds came rolling in through the valley and
they brought the strongest winds we’d experienced yet, as well as the most
hail. We made it another 25 feet or so before the wind actually knocked me off
my feet and moved me about 15 feet in the opposite direction. It was here when
our leaders decide that finishing our climb wasn’t worth the risk of being
blown off the mountain, so we decided to turn around. But even turning around
wasn’t an option at this point, so all of us huddled behind the big rock where
we ate lunch and held on for dear life. You might think I’m being dramatic, but
thoughts actually went through my head at this point like “Do we have a flare?
Who knows we’re up here? Is it possible to call for a helicopter? Am I going to
be covered in red welts from this hail? How long until they find my body?” Ok,
looking back it was a little dramatic, but I was actually really scared!
Eventually the storm calmed down,
so we started our descent. Remember when I said it was slippery? Yeah, going
down was a whole new kind of challenge. One girl fell on her butt and proceeded
to slide a good 25 feet down! We really should have brought sleds, because wet,
muddy grass works even better than snow! Everyone fell and slid multiple times,
and I have to say, going down was a lot more fun than going up. The only
downside to sliding was that have a wet muddy butt was absolutely freezing when
you stood up and the wind hit you, so I tried to stay on my feet as much as
possible. We stopped on the way down to takes some pictures by a gorgeous
waterfall, made it back over the river much easier than the first time around,
and before we knew it the hike was over! It was definitely one of those
having-a-baby experiences, where in the end you (almost) forget about the pain
because it’s so worth it. As soon as we made it back into the town of Leenane,
we went into the nearest pub, and I headed straight for the bathroom to change
into dry clothes! Then I enjoyed some delicious hot chocolate and a bowl of
soup, and we laughed about our crazy adventures. By the time I got home and
took a very long, hot shower and climbed into bed, I was completely exhausted and
slept for nearly 12 hours. The day was absolutely exhilarating, and call me
crazy, but I can’t wait to do it all over again this Sunday!
Slán go fóill!
Elise
