Ward Words

After showers and another big breakfast, we walked down the road from the B&B to purchase bus and ferry tickets to visit the Aran Islands, of the western coast of Ireland. By the way, it was really great having the huge breakfasts. For one, the food was good but it also allowed us to skip lunch and spend the extra time site seeing.

We barely made the bus to head to the ferry, and it didn't hurt that it was a bit late. The ferry ride took about 60 minutes. Being on the water and moving fairly fast made for a chilly trip, but the sea was calm to make up for the cold.

We arrived at the large island, called Inishmore, and walked to the bike hire. You can tour the island three ways: bike, foot, and tour van. The weather was nice so had planned on renting bikes (€10/person). The bikes weren't in the greatest shape. Kelly's seat had issues staying up but we managed to rig it into position. Lucas' bike chain fell off anytime he changed gears, so it was one gear for the whole day. To avoid the main crowd of cyclists, once we got going we turned off of the main street. We shortly found out this put us on the tour route, just going backwards, which was fine. The road we were on followed the coastline and made for some great vistas. Our first stop was some church ruins and then a seal habitat. The seals were out (we think) so we tried to snap some photos with the digital zoom. You can be the judge if those are rocks or seals.

Later we came to a fork in the road and chose the 5km round trip that took us first to Clocan na Corraige, which is a hard way to say "beehive hut." These huts were commonly used by monks during the 5th and 6th centuries. They were small but provided enough shelter and the slant of the rocks shed rainwater from the dwelling.

The next site on the 5km trip was Na Seacht Teampaill (Seven Churches). These church ruins included a graveyard that is still used by island natives today.

After returning to the road fork, we headed up to Dun Aonghasa, the main attraction on the island. There was a small fee and an large uphill climb, but it was absolutely worth it. The hill climb ended at a sheer cliff dropping straight into the Atlantic. At the cliff's edge was Dun Aonghasa, a ring fort. The fort is essentially a semi-circle, with the open end bounded by the cliff. Unlike the Cliffs of Moher, there was no barrier here - you could just walk off the edge. The walls of the fort were built from stacked stones (as were all fences on the island - see the pictures)in three distinct layers/levels to account for settling earth. The views of the island and the ocean were spectacular and were popular photo subjects.

The ferry left the island at 5:00pm, and if you weren't there, you were sleeping on the island, so we headed back. The trip back was much more uphill than we expected, and after a whole day of riding we had to walk our bikes up a few hills. We made it to the dock with some time to spare and visited the Aran Sweater Shop. Sweaters from the island are known throughout Ireland for their quality and have to be certified. They have certain knit patterns that mean different things, such as love, wealth, happiness, etc. Some clans have their own knit pattern as well. Many of the sweaters there were handknit from wool from the islands. We returned our bikes after leaving the shop and headed for the ferry. In all, we guess we biked about 15 miles plus walking--an exhausting day. The Aran Islands were Kelly's favorite part of the trip and would be her recommendation to anyone planning a trip to Ireland--make sure to spend a day at least on Inishmore. The ferries to the other 2 small islands should be running by the summer, but were not running during the winter and spring months.

We took the ferry back and walked back to our B&B to unload our backpacks. We had dinner at a restaurant called Finnegans--Lucas had Irish stew and Kelly had Shepherd's pie. From there, we went by An Pucan (the pub from the first night in Galway) and enjoyed a drink while listening to the "trad" (live traditional Irish music). It was a fun way to end the day.

Click the picture below for our Day 4 photo album.