The Shores of Galway Bay (kind of)
So I took another touristy bus trip on Saturday. Well, not much a bus trip as a rail then bus then rail trip. Starting bright and early I had to hail a cab to get to the train station by 6:40 am (bleh). After a 2.5 hour train ride and about a 20 minute busride, we arrived at what turned out to be the biggest waste of time on the trip, Bunratty Castle and Folk Park (and general waste of time). We spend an insane 2 hours there $@#$@! The weather was nasty, there were lots of people, the castle wasnt even that interesting, as it was restored at least. Ruins are much more interesting. Anyway, after that waste of time (have I mentioned that it wasted 2 hours), we drove over to the town of Doolin (1.5 hours away) for lunch. Of course, during this time the skies opened up and were blue and rainless. of course, we were also on the bus for this, which irritated me even more. The tour I was on was called “The Cliffs of Moher, the Burren, and Galway Bay”. It mentioned a stop at Bunratty, but frankly, we spent more time there than anywhere else and it wasnt even on the name of the tour. It that place were to collapse I wouldn’t shed a tear.. Anyway, I was nearly fuming at this point and stormed off the bus when we stopped for food. I grabbed my camera and tripod and hiked up the road into the hills, and it turns out, along one end of the Cliffs of Moher, while all those other suckers ate over priced pub grub. The skies were still really nice, so I got some really nice pictures, including the one posted yesterday and this one (and more to come):
Farmland Path Near Cliffs of Moher, Doolin, Co Clare, Ireland
After returning to the town and getting something light to eat at the local deli (much cheaper I might add, suckers) the rain came back, so it looks like I got the best photos of anyone because they were all inside eating (suckers).
We then drove to the Cliffs of Moher proper, that is, the touristy area of it. It was quite stunning, even in the fog and rain. I can see where I’d want to hike and all when I come back for a more serious amount of time (of course, after 2 hours at waste of time and 1 hour at lunch, we spent a whole 30 minutes here.. one of the most beautiful sights in Ireland.. 30 minutes..).
After that, we bussed over to The Burren, a limestone landscape formed from volcanoes. Absolutely stunning, and again, crappy weather. If we had given the stupid dumb place a miss and eaten later we could have seen the cliffs and the burren with stunning light.. jerks.. We had a whole ten minutes here.. ten freakin minutes. Fortunatly, I made the best of it, here is an example of the coast line there. I’ll get some up of the limestone fields later.
Cold North Atlantic, The Burren, Co Clare, Ireland
Then we drove to Galway for the train back, passing by the Galway Bay along the way.. just getting to see it. Not even stopping, how asinine. Stupid effing castle…
All in all, a good scouting trip i guess. I know where I could spend entire weeks, but dear god, never go to Bunratty and cross your fingers that it burns down, falls over, and sinks into the swap.. then the swamp is hit by a meteor.. an acid meteor that eats through the swamp and castle remains and turns it into something more useful, like, i dunno, pennies or what have you…
