Clifden to Westport

Today we continued our discovery of Ireland by taking off were we left off in county Galway and moving up to county Mayo. We drove to Clifden passing the Twelve Bens mountain range were we briefly stopped at an farmers auction were cows and sheep were sold. Apparently a bale of hay costs 2,50 euro in Ireland. The bales kept following us throughout the day (see the picture of the curragh with the bales in the bow)

Unfortunately the weather was very cloudy/foggy and hence the mountains that are the backdrop to practically everything weren’t very visible. We saw the only fjord in Ireland at Leenane and stopped at the Doo Lough were 400 people died during the famine. Last stop was Westport were there is a bay with loads of strangely formed Islands. But you have to climb Croagh Patrick mountain were St Patrick went on Pilgrimage.

We didn’t get to see everything and we past some of the sights so we need to go back and I have promised J to stop at the following places:

• Avoca shop (Letterfrack)
• The weird little island with the Saint statues just beyond the Avoca shop
• Kylemore abbey

Oranmore to Lehinch

This weekend we went from Oranmore to Lehinch on the west coast going south from Galway.We started of with a great old derelict house in Ardfry and then moved south along the coast until Lehinch. There were some nice old castles, nice Irish cottages until we hit Murroughkelly which is where the wild coast starts. Murroughkelly looked just like a lunar landscape.

Then we moved on to the Cliffs of Moher, they are certainly beautiful but somewhat diminished due to the all the tourists and the trappings that go with it. We ended the day in Lehinch which is the premier Irish surfing village and ate fish and chips while watching the die hard surfers in the sunset.