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Published: July 25th 2015
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Well... that was a stressfully unplanned morning.
They close most of the common areas in the hostel from 10:30-12:30pm so I kind of begrudgingly set off on a hike... they suggested I join the Western Way and loop around but it was a two hour hike in the mountains and by the time I got near the base the cloud cover told me it was not going to be a good idea lol. Thankfully there were a bunch of giant boulders off the side of the road - perfect reading spot. (Just be mindful not to sit in sheep poop!) Of course as I went to settle the clouds cleared and it was blazing sun... blazing sun is not something you get to say too often in Connemara. I gave in and put sunscreen on and of course not two minutes later thick clouds rolled back in. Cannot win with this weather haha.
I read for about an hour before the rain actually started. I then contented myself to watch some sheep in the rain. What a sad sight I must have been from the highway hahaha - sitting on a boulder, by myself, in my bright red raincoat,
staring off into a field. It didn't rain that long but it stayed quite cold after that. Even with my coat it was a little shivvery.
I was joined by many sheep as the day went on. It was funny hearing them munch away. What wasn't so funny was the number of midges (most annoying insect ever) and seeing two Galway busses drive by at 12:45... like I knew they weren't my busses because that's way too early... but still had me sitting there like hmm... that would suck if I got stuck here. Needless to say the next hour and a bit was extremely long as I made way back to the pick-up spot and just hoped all was well lol. It was good to see the other hostellers show up - we had a good chat about our lives and where we were off to next. One of the girls asked how many times I'd been to Europe (... I actually don't even know off the top of my head) and she asked if that was the norm in Canada. Urm... no... not so much. I have a travel problem 😉
So, the bus did come
at 2:25pm. All was well. The second part of the tour was good. We had a different driver who was a sweet old man, but he wasn't funny which made for some long stories...
We didn't stop too many places - photo stop in another valley, some time in Cong (famous for the movie Quiet Man, apparently) and at this old Francisan Abbey. The Abbey was cool - so many interesting angles to take photos from.
We also had a good laugh at the Abbey - it's a busy tour company, so there were actually three busses out doing the Connemara tour today - they stagger them so that we don't all arrive in places at the same time. As we're leaving the Abbey, both other busses show up which is odd. I could see one bus was the driver I'd had for the Cliffs both days (Willy!!) and the other is Mike (the funny one from yesterday). Our driver puts his window down to chat with Mike and they both start laughing because Willy had been 45 min behind them so how on earth did he catch up? We start joking behind the driver that he must
have cut something out (some teachers from Alberta were sitting in front of me - they joked he did the same thing on their tour and they never saw the Cliffs 😉 lol). Anyway, of course it's a joke because not only would they not skip something... but he's also apparently their transport manager hahaha. Very curious.
(The drivers then teased that he was an Irish fairy because we'd just talked about ring forts and where the mythical fairies live lol. He's quite short, you see.)
And that's it for Ireland, really... it went quick. Tomorrow I'm off to Belfast for a few days before taking the ferry. I can't wait for Isle of Man.
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