Driving on the Left: Day 3

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Galway Caves, Burren's, and Cliff's of Moher

We had risen early once more so that we could fit in as much as humanly possible. First stop on our adventure was the Aliwee Caves. This was an amazingly neat cave! Although it didn't hit me until right as we ducked to enter the beginning of the 40 min walk thru the cave tunnels that this was going to be 100's of feet deep into a mountain with no readily available exit! AHHHHHH once I swallowed the panic I decided to sing cheerily to my self (inside my head) to distract from the fact that if by some random catastrophe the whole mountain could crush us or bury us alive. But back to the caves... So this cave was discovered in the 70's by a man whose dog had chased a bunny into a small hole. The man, with nothing but a candle, followed his dog in and rescued the dog and also discovered the amazing cave. It wasn't until many years later that he told anyone about the cave and eventually the land was bought and the tunnels were studied more closely. So inside the cave the first stop is the skeletal remains of a European Bear that had died approximately 1600 years ago and interestingly enough the European Bear became extinct about 1400 years ago so this bear was one of the last generations of these bears... so the bears used to use the front portion of these caves to hibernate in because the temperature of the caves would always stay a perfect 10C.

Continuing on our walk through the caves, getting further and further from the entrance (cheerful melody in Katie's head gets louder). In the caves there were hundreds of beautiful caltrate deposits that would form these stone like icicles. These icicles would takes thousands of years to build up only a few inches!There were many gorgeous waterfalls as well. It was at the half way point that the tour guide thought it would be fun to experience what it would be like to have no light WHATSOEVER and so she turned out all the lights... and I began to nervously laugh in hopes of the lights coming back on soon. With the lights back on we started walking again. Saw a cute little bat about the size of a thumb. We finished the walk through the tunnels and finally made the break for the exit. The tunnels were definitely a must see.

Back to the car we continued on our way towards the Cliff's of Moher. On the way we stopped at a nice area of the Burren. The Burren is the name for the mountainous areas that are covered with stone. We jumped around from rock to rock for a while, climbed over a stone fence and visited with some cows and horses, and then jumped back into the car to continue on the drive.

At the Cliff's of Moher we decided that we would heed the warning on the signs and not climb over the wall to get a better look at the cliffs edge. The Cliff's were breath taking but the wind forced us to make it a quick viewing. The height of the cliffs is definitely amazing and hard to fathom. Back at the car, while making lunch, we saw a very funny sight. There was a car full of guys, also having lunch, and the driver was chuggin back a beer.. it was the middle of the day and the middle of no where! So once we determined that they were on their way out of the car to see the cliffs we decided to start driving so that there would be a good distance between us and them on the road.

So we continued our drive to sleep in Killarney Co. Kerry. I really liked Killarney, it was a cute little town with a nice feel. I definitely would like to go back and visit Killarney. Since we made it to Killarney pretty early we decided to have dinner then watch a movie before bed.

Only one more full day left in our journey!

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