After breakfast we headed out to explore an are of Ireland known as the Burren. People often describe it as being like the surface of the moon. There seemed to be too much life (plant and animal) in the area that we explored.
We stopped at the Clare Heritage Center to get acquainted with the area. They have a beautiful new information center where we were told about a bus that would take us on an hour tour around the Burren. We decided to take the bus which turned out to be a van driven by a friendly Irishman named Rory. Carrie and I were the only passengers and we had him chatting away in no time. We learned all about the Burren and about Rory's six daughters and one son.
Based on the fact that we told him that we wanted to see the wildflowers that are currently blooming, he recommended a hike to us that would take us to see hundreds of species of flowers. We set off on the hike without discussing the decision and about a half hour into the 2 hour hike we finally discovered that it wasn't really what either of us had planned for the day. We decided to turn around and head back to the area where we could be picked up again. Rory gave us a hard time about not finishing the hike. I blamed the fact that Carrie didn't have the correct shoes but we took a ribbing anyway. The Irish are know for something called "craic". It basically means good humored fun and teasing, so we received our first dose of craic ( pronounced CRACK
After the bus ride we got back on the road and headed to Poulnabrone Portal Tomb, an ancient pagan burial site. It is a beautiful monument which hasn't been enhanced by the tourist prevention rope that has been recently added.
After viewing Poulnabrone we made our way to Ballyshannon, a small waterfront town on the Galway Bay. We took a picnic lunch (if 5pm can be considered lunchtime) and climbed up onto the seawall and enjoyed beautiful Irish waterfront views while we ate.
From Ballyshannon we drove the coast down to the Cliffs of Moher. The views along the coastline are stunning! Barren and desolate for much of the drive, we enjoyed sunshiny views of the Aran Islands, which are infrequently seen from shore due to normal Irish weather. We have been telling locals all week that we teamed up the sunshine from California and Florida and brought it to them here.
When we arrived at the Cliffs we were happy to find that the payment office was closed and we saved the €6 ($8) entry fee. The cliffs are beautiful and the light was gorgeous. Rain threatened in the distance as we hiked up the viewing areas both to the north and south to see the views. We spied a photographer down on a rock outcropping that we decided we need to join so we hopped the " do not enter" rock wall and clamored down the cliff side. We took some pictures of each other near, but not too near the edge. Neither of us wanted to get blown off due to the rising wind and sudden rain. We rushed back to the car and drove home in the sometimes rainy, sometimes road flooded, and occasionally completely dry conditions.
Another 10:30pm dinner, and a bit of downtime before showers, and we were off to an exhausted slumber.
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