a sight not be to mist

After weeks of hiding from the sun in France and Spain, I had been looking forward to Ireland and its miserable weather. I would now like to retract that. It sucks. Especially when you go to see a beautiful natural wonder, and can’t see three feet in front of you.
Feeling slightly worse for wear, I boarded the PaddyWagon tour bus at 8am. Our destination was the Cliffs of Moher, about three hours away. It was a much smaller bus than the trip I did with the company on Tuesday, but it was nice not to have so many people. We made a couple of little stops along the way…my favourite was at Ballybeg Priory. It’s basically ruins in a paddock but you can still step inside a surviving medieval dovecots, which was used to keep pigeons. There are also horses wandering around that are quite friendly so I gave them a bit of a pat.

We had lunch in Doolin, a small little town that’s very popular for Irish music. A lot of tourists roll through during the day on the way to the Cliffs, but apparently at night it’s a lot less crowded and more enjoyable. It had been raining all day, but seemed to ease up and clear a little on our way to Doolin. There was even some sunshine and Mike, our guide, was hopeful the sun might burn away some of the mist. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be. Arriving at the cliffs, the entire bus prepared to be drenched. I put on my drizzle and grabbed my umbrella and headed for the cliffs. I could barely see the path marking the way there but figured I better go and see what I could. That turned out to be not a whole lot. I peered over the edge, eager to see something but there was nothing but mist. I would have been disappointed but given the weather (and my slight hangover) I wasn’t too bothered. I walked around the top for a bit and saw what I could before going back to the visitors centre. Mike said there used to be a lot of little shops there that looked quite horrible, so the decision was made to demolish them and building something that didn’t look quite so ghastly. The visitors centre is quite clever. They have built it back into a hill so it disappears into the landscape a lot. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for the car park, but Mike said there are plans to put some trees and plants around it to hide it as much as they can. Suitably wet, I walked around the visitors centre for a bit in the hope of drying off a bit. There is a good interpretive centre that details a lot of the history of the cliffs. I would have really enjoyed it but I was wet, cold and hungry. And I’d already made my mind up to come back another time.

The tour made a stop at Blarney on the way back and we were home by about 7pm. The tour was pretty fun actually and Mike was a great guide. He talked a lot about general things in Ireland, not just about where we were going. I learnt about Irish number plates, that the day's deaths are broadcast on the radio every evening and a bit about the education system.

Back in Cork I walked to Donagh's house, where I'm staying for the next three nights. Because the tour left from the hostel so early it was easier to stay there last night. We went to the pub to meet some of his friends and was home about 1am. Argh I'm too old for these late nights.