Aaron’s Completely Terrible Ireland Travel Blog

Day 3

As you can probably tell, there is not a lot of spell-checking going on in these posts. Generally,

I’ve been writing them on my phone at about 10:30 pm, but good news for you, I’m writing this

one at about 6 am after a night out. Should be better, or not?

Anyway, Day 3 was a long day. Our trip to the Aran Islands and the Cliffs of Moher started early.

We met our tour bus at 8:30 am. Then it was a long drive through the countryside to Doolin to

ride the ferry out to the islands. Lots of beautiful landscapes to be seen and local history to be told

about.

We arrived at the docks about 10:30, I guess. The ferries were not as big as I thought they

would be, but not small either. Probably around 150 people or so, I’d guess. It’s approximately a

15-minute ride out to the island, and it was a bit of a choppy day on the water. If you make this

trip and get seasick, I’d advise being prepared just in case.

Once on the island, we took a horse-drawn carriage ride around the island. Our driver, Tom, has

lived on the island for 22 years, and his draft horse, Bernie, was 15 and majestic. However, this

wasn’t a romantic carriage. Think Conestoga wagon with car tires, but smaller. Perfectly fine

and they seat 7 people with one beside the driver. I didn’t see much of the first half of the trip as I

was sitting on the right-hand side of the wagon behind a lovely young American redheaded

woman who was not interested in tying up her hair in any way. She was traveling alone, having

a great time, and was very nice, so I just dealt with it while my wife laughed at me. The young lady

had no idea and probably never will unless she reads this.

The first stop was at a shipwreck on the coast of the island from the 1960s. Just a mangled

hulk of metal that they dragged ashore off the reef it struck back then. Not to worry, all 11 crew and

the entire cargo load were saved, which included apparently everything from whiskey to toilets.

When we got back onto the wagon, people moved seats as we just loaded, however, and my

day of getting slapped in the face by hair was thankfully over. Mostly, that’s the whole trip

though. At one point, we had to get out of the cart and walk up a hill because with the people

on Bernie couldn’t (or they didn’t want to overwork him, which I respect) pull us all up the hill.

We got back onto and back down to the village we went to the pub. That’s it. That’s the whole

tour. There is a crumbling castle up on top of the hill, but they can’t take the carts up there. The

island is basically just a big ass rock in the water. Perhaps the most impressive part was that all

the stone walls you think of in Europe were done for two reasons. One to clear the land down

to bedrock basically, and the other to create wind breaks to protect the crops. No, you ask me,

“Hey didn’t you just say down to bedrock?” And yes, yes I did. They would pull all the loose

stones they could, then backfill with sand and seaweed to make soil to grow in. I mean, man,

you really gotta want to live on this island bad to make it happen back in the day. And

apparently people have lived there for 6000 years, so if you can figure out why, let me know.

After an Irish Coffee from the pub, it was back into the ferry for the return trip. The return trip is

much longer because it takes you around the bottom of the Cliffs of Moher. You get to see

just how tall they are, 700ish feet, all the layers of rock, Harry Potter's cave (I guess if you know

you know and I don’t know), and sea birds, including puffins during the right time of year. We

were a little late because they had already migrated.

Back onto the bus for a 5-minute ride to the lunch stop, McGann’s Pub. I had a seafood

chowder that was fantastic. My wife had beef stew, which was also good. Mind you, lunch was

around 3:00 pm.

Ok I know this is getting long for a blog but back into the bus to go to the top of the Cliffs of Moher.

See the pictures. Flippin' cool views, but in my opinion, you can only stare out across the ocean for so long.

Back onto the bus for and 1:30 min ride back to Galway, and we arrived around 7:15 pm. We

went to Monroe’s on the west end for a pizza (cracker-type crust and they put sweet corn on

basically all their specialty pizzas and I’m not mad at it). The west end is fun as they close

down the streets at night, and the mix of people makes for some good people watching while

you have a drink out in the street. You name a person and buddy, we saw it. Literally no issues

at all, and everyone seems to be having a cracking good time.

Enough out of me. More tomorrow.