Ireland, Day Nine: Clifden

We had tickets for the 12:00 ferry, so we had a nice leisurely breakfast at the B&B and then headed back to town to buy some sweaters. The Aran Islands are famous for their traditional wool sweaters. You can buy the sweaters all over Ireland (and probably on the internet and all that) but we wanted to get some straight from the source.

There were so many sweaters! We both got the traditional cream color.

Then we walked over to catch the ferry. Inishmore was my favorite day of the trip.

It was so, so windy. Worse than the previous day. I was really dreading getting back on the boat now that I knew what was coming. We stood in line in the crazy wind to get on first so we could sit near a window at the back, which some ladies at the B&B had told us was the best for minimizing seasickness.

Score!

And this time we didn't get sick at all. Being able to see the horizon out the windows makes a huge difference. It also, however, makes you realize you are in a very small boat in the very large ocean with very big waves, and if something happened to the boat you would be dead instantly. The waves were huge! I don't know if I've ever been on a boat in the ocean before this. I didn't love it.

We drove an hour or so to Clifden, near Connemara National Park. Ben had a blood sausage salad for lunch.

Our B&B in Clifden was top notch, one of the best of the trip. There were so many thoughtful, personal touches and the whole house was full of music memorabilia - one of the owners is the bass guitar tech for Adam Clayton of U2. While he's gone his wife runs the B&B by herself. They let guests take their dogs on walks! It's nice that they're so trusting of humanity; I would never let strangers out of the house with my cats.

The house is right on the Sky Road, the local sightseeing loop. I'd had vague plans to walk the whole thing (12km) but we arrived late in the day and it was very, very windy. So windy we could be walking side by side and not be able to hear one another without shouting. So we decided to walk to the lookout point at the top of the hill and come back. It was a couple of hours round trip.

This donkey LOVED us. He was so curious and ran alongside as we walked up the road.

The views from the Sky Road are amazing. I was glad we were walking this instead of driving - so Ben could take the time to look around, but also so I wouldn't have to worry about plunging off the cliffs to our doom.

When we started off it was nice and sunny, but we could see the rain coming. The first time was just a light shower, made a touch more unpleasant than you'd expect because the wind blew it straight into our faces.

Then it stopped again and became sunny and we dried off.

It rained again, however, and soaked us to the skin in a matter of seconds. We knew it would stop, though. It always stopped within a few minutes. So we kept going. We did decide that if we go back to a place like this we're going to have to get waterproof pants. Rain jackets work great but they don't cover your legs.

We made it to the top! It was so windy here I had trouble standing still.

We headed back down with the wind at our backs, which was much more pleasant. It didn't rain anymore, either.

There are delicious wild blackberries all over the place in Ireland!

As we came back down the hill we could see Clifden Castle, which is directly across from our B&B. It looked pretty cool! We decided to take the path to see it up close.

However, as soon as we turned the corner and headed back straight into the wind, we gave up. It was time to go inside.

We hung out in the B&B for a while and then headed into Clifden for dinner. The drive home in the dark rain on the hilly single-track road was pretty scary, even though it was only a mile or so. By this point we were pretty used to the daytime driving, but it never stopped being scary at night.