Yesterday we took a bus tour of Cliffs of Moher (and a few other places) meaning that we literally went across the country and back in a day, and I was rather exhausted after our 14 hour tour so chose not to blog last night. Today we went to the beach town of Bray, a bit south of Dublin for a lovely walk and to explore somewhere else (and to find a very old cache).
Yesterday’s first stop was, and I’m not making this up, at Barack Obama Plaza, in the town of Moneygall. Think rest stop with gas station and fast food and not much else. Seems one of Obama’s ancestors lived there, and he and Michelle visited during 2011 and impressed the locals by both demonstrated the appropriate etiquette for drinking a Guinness and giving the appropriate toast (Sláinte!, pronounced slawn-CHA). After starting to search for the nearby cache, we did a divide and conquer: I went inside to get coffee and a snack, June stayed outside and found the cache.
The next stop was Cliffs of Moher which were impressive and the highlight of the day. Lots of wind and wave erosion on this western part of Ireland at the Atlantic Ocean resulted in steep cliffs and some rocks that used to be part of Ireland but have separated. This description doesn’t begin to do it justice, and it was impressive to see (I will be posting some trip pictures on FB after I get home).
We got to visit a small piece of Ireland’s smallest National Park, The Burren which is a karst landscape. It was interesting from a geology perspective, and also from a botany perspective as there is a huge diversity of plants including some tropical and some arctic.
The least interesting stop to me was an old monastery which had a very tall and slightly tilted tower. There was a graveyard and the remains of a church building.
The final stop was Galway which is apparently the 6th largest city in Ireland with 75-80,000 residents. After a shrimp and chips “linner” we walked down a pedestrian mall as someone who shall be nameless had to sample some sorbet that was recommended. The strawberry was quite good, and the lemon even better. After a brief visit to the cathedral, we walked along the River Corrib which is the fastest running river in Ireland and was indeed flowing quickly. There were lots of swans in the water, and indeed I captured a photo of “seven swans a swimming.”
Today was much more low key. We’d received a recommendation to take the train to Bray so we researched how to get to the train station and walked there. Fortunately before we used the machine to buy tickets we saw an information desk so we asked about the best way to get there and learned that the train wasn’t going to Bray due to construction. We asked how else to get there and were directed to a specific bus stop to take bus 145. Sounds good, we found the stop and buses 140 and 155 stopped there, fortunately the 155 was named something with Bray in it and we convinced ourselves it was the right bus.
Once in Bray, there was one obvious task: find the cache named Europe’s First (GC43 for any cachers reading this) which was placed in June 2000, a mere month after the first-ever geocache was placed (in Oregon). Suffice to say, mission accomplished. Beautiful walk along a beach sidewalk and a nicely maintained trail that many people, and quite a few dogs, were walking today.
We might have found a few caches on our walk. So far we’ve found several types in Ireland: traditional, virtual, earthcache, multi, letterbox and labs. Seems there will need to be a puzzle in our future.
After returning to the beach area, we had to touch the Irish Sea. June dipped her feet in, but unlike some people not in Ireland right now who shall remain nameless, she got only her feet and perhaps her ankles wet. I managed to touch the water with my hand while keeping my shoes dry. We both also successfully skipped stones because, well, because when there’s an opportunity to skip stones it must be taken. We got to see the 14th annual local Auto Show with lot of old, and some not so old, cars. Then we hunted for a pub, intending to have a late lunch. We resisted the urge to watch the Bray Wanderers take on Waterford FC, in Irish league football (soccer) though June did ask one of the security people for a pub recommendation.
At home all pubs sell food, here not so much, so my second apple cider of the trip might not have been the wisest decision, though June was happy with her Guinness. The two bartenders we interacted with couldn’t have been more welcoming. One of them chatted with us for quite a while, we mentioned we might watch a football game tonight (we didn’t), it was nice after she asked if we meant American football to say that we meant European football and fun to show her my Thorns scarf.
We decided that the beverages had been rather filling so we’d head back to Dublin for dinner. On our way back to the bus station, June spotted a grocery store. Sure, let’s get a small snack to eat on the bus. Ten bagels (they sell them in packages of 5 here), some salami, a package of cookies, and a Halloween cake later, we exited. We asked a teenage employee what Halloween cake was and he said it was delicious so we couldn’t resist (turns out that it’s a raisin bread/fruitcake that June liked but I did not). Half way into our bus ride, June observed that I hadn’t eaten anything yet….oops, seems I’d been distracted by the grocery store, our last cache, boarding the bus and other squirrels that I’d forgotten to eat. Silly me. We ended up dining at an unimpressive Mexican restaurant about a block from our lodging.
Yesterday and today have been incredible! As I was finishing writing tonight’s episode, I received a text from David who’s in London right now bragging that he walked an impressive 8.3 miles and took 20,026 steps today. Let the record show that I walked 9.0 miles and took 20,218 steps, my 4th consecutive day over 15,000 steps.
Time to sign off then have a bagel, something chocolate, and maybe something else before calling it a night. Tomorrow we head north to Northern Ireland (part of the UK) to see Giant’s Causeway and Belfast.
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