Day 138: Connemara National Park

Up and out at the usual time, and hit the road heading west, this time with no street festivals blocking our way! Our destination for the day was the Connemara National Park, a large mountainous area a couple of hours to the west.

The drive over was actually fairly unexciting, just lots of fields, small hills and microscopic towns, though as we approached the coast things started to pick up. Very overcast skies, and we drove through quite a few rain showers on the way.

Took a detour to the small town of Clifden for lunch where we stopped at a highly recommended bakery. Shandos enjoyed her salmon & cream cheese bagel, but my pie was a bit disappointing - not enough meat, and the meat that was in there was too fatty. At least we had a window table with a great view! Didn't stay for long in the town, as it was fairly touristy.

Finished off the last 30 minutes of driving into the national park, where the scenery was much better - very green but with grey stone and large hills poking out. Parked up in the car park and set off on the main walk from the visitors centre as it started to rain again.

We'd only planned on doing the shortest version, but at the junction we decided to tough it out and walk the middle distance route instead (there are three routes of varying lengths, but all share a common start point and first section). This middle version took you up the low-lying hills around the visitors centre, but without tackling the tall mountain like the longer trail.

Of course, as soon as we'd started on the longer trail the rain got heavier, so that we were fairly wet by the time we finished. Nice views, but very hampered by the rain. We weren't too bad I guess since we both had rain jackets and umbrellas, but poor Schnitzel was drenched. At least we had his towel waiting back at the car!

Rather than picnicking, we sat in the car and ate the piece of Sacher Torte we'd bought at the bakery, watching the windows fog up and listening to the rain drum on the roof. Alas.

As we drove back out of the national park via a different route back to Galway, the rain eased off and we were treated to some great views. We also had the entertaining sight of a tourist driver stuck in a ditch after attempting an ill-advised three point turn. Helped them shove the car out and set off again back to Galway.

Arrived back at our student digs to have the place to ourselves for a bit which was nice, so I took the opportunity to finish off a video and do some writing. Had a takeaway pizza for dinner, and had a brief bit of excitement when one of the down-lights in the ceiling exploded. I swept everything up, but annoyingly couldn't actually put it in a dustpan as I couldn't find one! Eventually our host's flatmate came home and swept it up for us.Read more