Ireland, September, 2013: Part Two

          We knew Northern Ireland was going to be difficult to beat because of how beautiful it was, so expectations were low when we headed West. We woke up after a great night at our first bed and breakfast, ate an enormous “Irish breakfast”, then decided to stop just down the street at the oldest distillery in the world. I’m not a whisky drinker, but it was great to see the history of Bushmill’s. Plus, I had my first encounter with wildlife in the U.K. A ridiculously cute cat wandered up to me at the distillery. I sat with him the whole time while everyone else took a tour. 

         After the distillery, we headed to our first castle, Dunluce. It was amazing. Dunluce is perched at a cliff’s edge, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. It’s mostly in ruins now, but it is easy to see how intricate the construction was. The nerd in me was analyzing the castle for weakness, thinking how difficult it would be to siege it because it is built on such dramatic slopes. Beneath the castle, accessible only from a steep slope within the inner wall, is the “Mermaid Cave”. After we looked around the castle for a while, we couldn’t help ourselves. The cave is famous because there are legends and alleged sightings of mermaids inside. We didn’t realize until after we’d been in there for an hour that there was a large sign telling people not to enter. I can understand why – it is steep, slick, and the tide is so incredibly strong. 

                               (The warning sign that we missed...and the entrance to the cave)

                                              (Matt and I in front of the Dunluce Castle ruins)

               (Charlie, Matt, and Lynee, midway down the descending staircase inside the outer wall)

                                     (Matt and Charlie in the cave...note how strong the tide is)

                                             (Matt and I at the mouth of the Mermaid Cave)

                                                                 (A view of the cave)

     The castle was amazing enough we could have stayed for a lot longer, but we had an appointment at 3:00 at Ireland’s School of Falconry, and we still had a long way to drive. Ireland is really not that big, but note to future travelers: if GPS tells you one hour, plan on an hour and a half. They calculate the distance as if you were going the full, recommended 80 – 100 km/hour. The roads are extremely narrow and they have abrupt twists – you are not going 80 km/hour. 3:00 began to near, and we were nowhere near Ashford Castle where the school is. So we decided to try to go to Falconry the next day, and explore instead. I’m very glad we did. We ran into a lot of ruined abbeys, drove down old country roads were we ran into herds of cows. And we found one abbey in particular that we got out and explored for a long time. It was amazing. Completely overgrown, surrounded by a graveyard and spectacular Irish countryside. We even found a tomb with human bones still in it. 

                        (The further South you drive, the more it looks like this. It got way foggy)

                                                           (A random abbey we found)

                     (The spectacular Irish countryside. View from the ruined abbey we explored)

                                                     (A tree growing from the abbey tower)

                                                  (The human skull we found inside a tomb)

                            (This happens in Ireland. We definitely weren't in Salt Lake anymore)

           We finally continued on and found Ashford Castle, but the School of Falconry was closed, so we just stayed in another B&B. We were having serious problems with cash. None of our debit/credit cards seemed to work at ATMs, and we found out quickly that most B&Bs don’t take cards. We’d find out a day later that in Europe, ATMs automatically withdraw from savings accounts instead of checking accounts like in the U.S. Easy fix J

            The next morning, we went to Ashford Castle in the hopes that we could reschedule our falconry. They were all booked up, but one of the falconers took pity on us and squeezed us in. We got a quick tour of the school, learned the differences in the way falcons, hawks, and owls hunt, and how meticulous they have to be about their diet. Even ¼ ounce change in body weight can render a hawk unable to fly successfully. They are weighed twice every day, their meals strictly monitored. I was finally handed a hawk, and it was love at first sight. Lynee took one as well, as it was ladies first, and then we hiked into the forest to go hunting. Falconry was AMAZING. Probably my favorite thing we did in Ireland. We took turns with the hawks, learning how to send them off, recall them, reward them, and test their maneuverability. They are incredible hunters. Our hawks were siblings, Andes (male) and Lima (female), and were only 14 weeks old, but fully grown. Their curiosity was the main indicator of age; they kept bringing us sticks and moss to show off. We spent an hour and a half with them before we finally returned to the castle. It was an experience that I highly recommend to anyone traveling in Western Ireland. 

                (The hawks sitting on their perches. They are lazy and sleep at least 18 hours a day)

                                                 (Matt, signaling a hawk to return to him)

                                                                  (Lima, the female)

                                                                  (Andes, the male)

                          (A close-up of their talons. Incredibly sharp, but they are careful with them)

                     (Andes, eating a mouse. Charlie looks fascinated and horrified at the same time)

                                                                (The beautiful Lima)

                                                (Matt, walking his hawk back to the school)

           After falconry, we hiked around the Burren, which is a natural area of wilderness with varying landscapes. The Burren would be a place to visit if you have lots of time – we did not, so the vast amount of hiking needed to see the really cool stuff wasn’t feasible. I’m glad we devoted little time to it, because it allowed us to spend more time at the Cliffs of Moher, which were spectacular. I’ve never seen another natural formation like this. There’s really no way to describe it, so here are some pictures. 

                                              (This is why there are no words to describe it)

                                                     (Charlie and Lynee at the cliffs)

                                                             (A view from the Burren)

                                                              (Matt and I at the cliffs)

                                                                   (Lynee and I)

                                                 (The little tower that guards the cliffs)

                                                                             (Matt)

                                                                          (In awe)


                   We drove a little further that day after the Cliffs and stayed in another B&B. The next day was our last full day in Ireland. We went to Blarney Castle. That was a really amazing place to go. It is so much taller than I imagined! The castle dominates the landscape, and it was a true eye-opened about the lifestyle people lived in those ages. The castle was tall, but the rooms were tiny, the staircases dangerous and winding. Blarney is in good enough shape that you can truly see each room and how it would have functioned. We toured it for quite a while before making our way to the top to kiss the famous Blarney Stone. Hopefully, we all have the luck of the Irish with us now J After that, we drove to Waterford, home of the famous crystal. The town wasn’t great, but the Waterford Crystal plant was pretty cool. Even better if you have thousands of dollars to blow on fancy crystal. We finally ended our day in Dublin so we could be near the airport for the following morning. 

                                                                     (Blarney Castle)

                                                              (Matt in the dungeons)

                                         (Matt, leaning down to kiss the famous Blarney Stone)

                                                    (The view from atop Blarney Castle)

                                                     (We took up arms on the battlements)

                                                   (From left: Lynee, Charlie, Matt, Me)

          That was our last full day in Ireland. The next morning, we would fly to Edinburgh, were more adventures await. I'll write about Scotland in my next blog!

Ireland, September, 2013: Part One

The concept of this trip began when my husband purchased one square foot of land for us in Scotland. Lochaber Estates, in an attempt to preserve a tract of land in the Highlands from being developed, sold off plots in such small sizes they knew the owners could never be gathered together and convinced to sell. My husband purchased one square foot for him and me, and then another couple square feet for our friends, Charlie and Lynee. We jokingly tossed out the idea of visiting our land, and the conversation quickly changed from a joke to a reality.

We decided if we were going to Scotland, we had mine as well tour the whole thing. From there, it grew; I have family in England, and we’d always wanted to see Ireland. Months later, we had a full trip to the UK planned, with limited time and money available to us. Everything had to come together quickly, with Matt recently returning from a deployment, three of us in college, and two of us slaves to work.

Salt Lake City to Chicago to Dublin. What a change. I’d been dreaming for years of what Ireland would be like, wondering if there were really green rolling hills and breathtaking scenery. Dublin was not what I expected. We picked up our rental car with ease from the airport, but spent twenty minutes in the parking lot practicing how to drive on the left side of the road. Matt did very well. Our GPS was our saving grace. Do NOT go anywhere in the UK without one. It’s worth downloading the UK maps onto your GPS at home (which is what we did), or paying the $15 a day for one. Dublin isn’t on any kind of a grid system like Salt Lake City is, and most of the roads have names instead of numbers. 

It was only about a six mile drive from the airport to our hostel, which we were admittedly worried about. None of us had ever stayed in hostels, and they tend to have a bad name.

                                   (Matt and I in front of Isaac's Hostel, in Dublin) 

We stayed at Isaac’s hostel. The bottom floor is a cozy common area, with a fireplace, walls full of tourist pamphlets, and tables were people call eat and work on their laptops. It was more welcoming than I’d expected. We checked in with ease, but found that we’d been split up into different rooms: Charlie and Lynee were in one, Matt and I in the other. But the cheap price made it worth is (around $35 per couple). The rooms had key-card access, and three bunk beds per room. We nervously stored our bags beneath our beds, then headed out into Dublin city to explore.

The area of Dublin we saw was incredibly touristy. There were cheap gift shops everywhere full of clover-plastered mugs, pens, towels, plates, shot glasses, etc. It was impossible to find anything that looked like a real Irish person would use. The gift shops were splattered all over in between pubs and mini-marts. I didn’t feel like Dublin was even remotely authentic. Granted, I was staying in an area where the hotels, hostels, and bed and breakfasts were located, but we didn’t overly enjoy the city. We found the last-touristy pub we could, and were treated to lamb stew, soda bread, Guiness, bangers and mash, and other Irishy stuff. We went to bed early to try to fight our jet-lagged exhaustion. I discovered I was the only girl in a room full of guys who had no modesty and came and went at all hours of the night. Combine that with the time-difference and the rickety train outside my window, and it was a long night of very little sleep.

            The next morning, we ate “breakfast” (basically toast and coffee) at the hostel because it was free, then started out for Northern Ireland. It took about 45 minutes of driving to leave behind touristy Dublin, and then we were in vast rolling hills full of sheep. The drive to Northern Ireland is about three hours from Dublin, and it gets progressively more and more beautiful. Everything was SO green. We somehow caught a break from famously wet Irish weather, and instead got wonderful sunshine that allowed us to walk around comfortably without jackets. By the time we arrived in Ballycastle (past Belfast), we were in considerably better spirits. Then we arrived at our first destination, Carrick-A-Rede bridge. 

               (The rolling green hills that Irish is famous for. This is in Northern Ireland, past Belfast)

                  (Matt, wearing his new Irish hat, looking out to the ocean during the hike to the bridge)

                                  (A landscape shot of the route returning from Carrick-A-Rede)

                                               (The ever-present, grazing sheep of Ireland)

                                                   (The view on the way to the bridge)

       (The view from the bridge if you look down. The color of the water there is varied and spectacular)

                                                         (Matt and I on the actual bridge)

                   (What you are rewarded with when you hike across the bridge to the other side)

                                                      (Charlie and Lynee on the bridge)

I had torn a ligament in my hip about six weeks prior to leaving for Ireland, so the walk to the bridge was rough. Once you arrive (about a $5 fee per person), it takes twenty minutes up a mixture of uphill and downhill walking to get to the bridge. We stopped to take a lot of pictures, and it was incredibly beautiful. If you look to your right during the walk, there are steep green ridges full of grazing sheep and tiny streams. To the right is the vast ocean, dotted with rocky outcroppings and various shades of blue, green, and turquoise. Ahead is a series of tiny rocky islands connected by the famous Carrick-A-Rede bridge. It’s an old-school rope and wood-plank bridge, so it sways with every step. Matt got a mild case of vertigo, but we all made it across fine, and were rewarded with spectacular views of the ocean.

We could have stayed all day, but we were crunched for time. With less than a week in Ireland, we had a list of things we wanted to accomplish, and the next place on our list was very close by. Less than half an hour drive brought us to the famous Giant’s Causeway. You have to pay (again, around $8/person) to get to the Causeway, and after walking through a visitor’s center, you have a ten minute walk (or you can pay $1 for a bus: we walked). As soon as I arrived at the Causeway, I could see why it’s famous. It looks like a giant has stacked thousands of long, hexagonal lengths of stone on beside each other. It was so much fun to hike around these. The area is not huge, but it is unlike any other area on earth. We stayed there until the sun started to slip: we weren’t confident enough yet to drive on the left side of the road in the dark. 

                                                             (The Giant's Causeway)

                                                       (The stacked hexagonal shapes)

                                  (From left: Me, Matt, Charlie, Lynee on top of the Causeway)

                                                             (Down by the roaring surf)

                                                                  (Charlie and Matt)

       (We found one of the famous red booths...for some reason Matt decided to maul me inside of it)

                 (Feeling devilish because of the funny looks we were getting from our picture-taking)

After the Giant’s Causeway, we knew it was time to eat and sleep. We’d taken the advice of some other travelers, and didn’t book hotels ahead of time. This was a little nerve-wracking for a group of people who are list-makers and detail-oriented, but it turned out to be a good thing. We didn’t make it as far as we’d hoped that day because we spent so much time at the bridge, but we didn’t have to stress about arriving at a predetermined hotel. We found a hotel/restaurant to eat at, and discovered that in Ireland, no one is in a hurry to bring you your check. Dinner is social, and they expect you to linger. Courses are not served at the same time (even if requested), so dinner can be a two-hour event. It was delicious, nonetheless. We finally paid and found a room at a bed and breakfast called Lismar B & B. The man was wonderfully nice, had a completely updated house with a comfortable atmosphere, and he introduced us the following morning to the meaning of a “full Irish breakfast” (eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, coffee, tea, cereal, yogurt, some round thing we never identified, mushrooms, tomatoes, soda bread, toast, and a potato-wedge-thingy). We would never have found that place had we booked ahead, and it was a much needed, quit change from the previous night’s hostel.

The  next day would see us through Dunluce Castle and much of Western Ireland - but I'll write about that in Ireland - Part 2.