Sligo and back via the north west coast

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Sunday 7th June
Sligo and back via the northwest coast.
The tour plan for today was to trek around the northwest coast and then south to Westport before returning inland to Sligo.
The weather continues to favour us and although a little overcast and cool it remains dry which makes travel and sightseeing so much more enjoyable.
The fully equipped kitchen in the apartment we are staying in meant we can prepare a full breakfast for ourselves which also continues to prove an advantage as it keeps us going for the day.Gretchens cold has developed into a full blown job so that will make her miserable for the next week!!
Being a Sunday we didn’t expect the road out of town to be busy and we weren’t wrong,in fact it was deserted.
The area we first travelled through was fairly uninhabitated except for the odd farmhouse.The countryside was pleasant rolling land and appeared quite fertile from the number of animals in the paddocks.
At Dromore West we took the road that headed towards the coast although it never actually made the coastline itself.The other side of the small village of Easky we stopped at a cemetery to take in some history from the graves and also the interesting view of large headstones in the cemetery with power generating windmills in the background.At least here on this open northwestern coastline the locals didn’t have to put up with the ugly coal fired power stations that dominated the east coast.
The cemetery wasn’t that old with the eldest headstone we could find going back to the mid 1920’s.The Irish do headstones really well with most of them being rather imposing and some quite elaborate.
Next stop ,still near the coast,was Moyne Abbey which dated back to 1180AD and was still in fair condition for its age.Like all the abbeys we have seen or been inside the roof had gone but the walls remained which meant you can get a feel for what each chamber or room was used for.
To get to the abbey,which was founded by a sect(?)of monks from France,we had to walk over some farmland.The first thing we noticed was a warning to beware of the bull !!!!This almost put us off but with no bull in sight we carefully entered the paddock.A little further on after stepping over a fence we saw some cows and in the distance in another paddock with a fence,the bull.The rest of the path to the abbey was protected by the fence so we went on to take the abbey itself in.
We carried on round the coast to Bangor Erris where we came across acres of peat that had been dug out to use on the fire.The it was down to Newport and onto Westport,the largest town in the northwest.We had been without the internet for a couple of days now and so went looking for an internet cafe to check on emails.
First though was a need to find a loo after bei ng out in the wilderness for a few hours in the car.The only public loo we could find required 30cents to open the door.We had just enough in Euro coin and so decided one of us would go first and keep the door open while the other went next.
The only problem was we couldn’t get the door to open!!! So that was 30cents wasted and we still needed a loo.
So the only option was to call in to a pub and use their facilities.We needed a beer and so chose the Matt Molloy and ordered up a couple of Guinnesses,our first since we arrived in Ireland.We haven’t been a fan of Guinness brewed in NZ but the real version in Ireland was good...and so was using the loo!!
As we set to leave Westport we noticed a stream of cars circling the main streets tooting their horns and making quite a commotion.
We took that it was a celebration of a local who had won a seat in the EU elections that closed on Thursday with the votes being counted yesterday.One of the blots on the roadside as we have travelled over the past 3 days have been passing so many signs depicting the faces of candidates for the elections.Hopefully these will come down now.
The road back to Sligo was inland and through pleasant farmland but with no particular places to stop to sightsee.We did stop at Castlebar to visit a Tesco supermarket to buy meat for dinner and also stock up on supplies.What was interesting was that the carpark at the supermarket wasn’t part of Tesco’s and we had to pay a 60 cent parking fee unless we spent €60 at Tescos in which case we could have parked for free as Tescos would have paid the fee for us!! First time we have come across an arrangement like this.
The journey home was a greater distance than we had first thought and we were after 7pm before we got back to Sligo.Our “flatmates” had left and we had the place to ourselves enabling us to catch up on some “administration” copying DVD’s of video from the first 6 weeks of our adventure ready to post one copy back to NZ.

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Comments

[Rin]

Yay for having a Guinness! :-)