WAW or A Long and Winding Road

What’s going on at the ABC. Has there been political interference? The news here is mainly about Brexit. The Labour Party is considering another referendum on Bexit. Maybe that’s the way for governments to operate, keep having referendums until they get a decision they want. We left Sligo (pronounce Slygo by the locals) we headed along the Wild Atlantic Way. It was a great day to do this trip with it being cold, wet and windy. We visited more rocks at old burial sites and Neolithic villages. At Carrowmore I walked around the various rock structures which were supposedly megalithic tombs, while MDW drank hot chocolate and purchased homemade jewellery from the lady at the coffee cart. MDW said seeing tombs and burial sites isn’t her cup of tea. Anyway there is a big pile of stones here and it did cross my mind that a clever Irish person decided to make a large mound of rocks after they discovered they had too many rocks to build anymore drywall fences. Surely not but the Irish still got the admission fee from me. Also visited a few headlands where I nervously approached the edge getting within 10 meters unlike some people who sat on the edge for a photo. Not for me, I heed the advice of the many warning signs.
Most of the coast road is narrow and winding. Often only enough width for one vehicle. We drove through many villages and past an amazing number of stunning two storey houses often built in a cluster or 3 or 4 but not really near a town. Usually they had an unattached garage with a door for one vehicle only. Maybe the Irish are one car families. After several hours of driving I said we’ll just got to Ceide Fields then drive down to Westport. After exiting the display the Navman suggest we turn left to go to Westport. Previously it was 77kms to Westport, suddenly it was 125kms and it was a very narrow winding road in the middle of the West Coast of Ireland. MDW was not too impressed with my navigation skills but I claimed it was the cars Navman to blame. Let me tell you, there were long periods of silence during this part of the drive.
Eventually we arrived at Westport which is a historic village where Irish families go away to for the weekend. I parked the car unsure if it was a legal place to park as the parking sign mentioned something about being a 30 minute loading zone. I ducked into the shop and asked about the parking only to be told not to worry about it as no one checks. After a walk around the town we had dinner before retiring for the night.
The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel where we could have had a full Irish but settled for bacon and eggs. We both asked for poached eggs, cooked until hard but they arrived how the chef thinks everyone should eat them, runny. I managed to get through mine but asked if MDW could have another couple of poached eggs, well done. This time they arrived as ordered. Once finished, with car packed we headed off to Galway. We had driven for about 30 minutes when at Partry we came across a “Road Closed” sign on the road to Galway. Now traffic controllers in Australia have a reputation of not over working as they change the sign from stop to slow. The Irish traffic controllers are better, they have the sign placed inside a witches hat and swivel it from stop to go once they lift their head from their iPhone and see the traffic is stopped in both directions. As I needed help with directions I pulled up and asked the traffic control bloke where do we head. “Go to Castlebar” then he mentioned a few other towns but Castlebar was all we needed. As we drove away from the road closure, over the next 10 miles there were 3 occasions where the other side of the road was closed with signs stating “road closed” and “local traffic only”. Didn’t really say “Road to Galway closed”. Maybe his is what we s meant by being Irish. We got to Castlebar and pulled into a petrol station for further directions. Go to Charlestown then follow the signs to Galway. This we did and a 1 hour drive became 2 hours. Fortunately we did drive along a major road where overtaking was possible. Every country has its own little driving courtesy’s. In the UK drivers will flash you to allow you to cut across an intersection in front of them as they slow down where in Ireland drivers put on their hazard lights when they pull in after overtaking. The first time I saw this I hit the brakes before realising they weren’t coming to a sudden stop but just pulling back in.
We have two nights in Galway and it is highway between Galway and Dublin. With no road closures it should be an uneventful but boring drive.Read more