Ireland, Day Eight: Inishmore

Inishmore is the biggest of the Aran Islands, just off the West Coast of Ireland near Galway. To get there, you can take a long (1.5 hours) ferry from Doolin, or a shorter (40 minutes) ferry from Rossaveel, near Galway. I'd read that the Doolin ferry is often cancelled due to weather, so we opted for Rossaveel, which turned out to be a good decision - it was a very windy day, and the Doolin ferry was indeed cancelled. 

I hadn't considered at all that we would be on a boat on the actual ocean with wind and waves and all that. About twenty minutes into quite bumpy ride, I looked over to find Ben very pale and staring straight ahead. "Are you all right?" I asked. He nodded but said nothing, and continued to look not all right. I started to get a little worried for myself, as I've always been prone to a little motion sickness as well. Around this time, all the guys who worked on the ferry were starting to wander around with expressions of concern, handing out plastic bags and keeping an eye on everybody. OH BOY. 

But the good news is, neither of us vomited. I can't say the same for some of the other passengers. Here's the boat.

When we arrived we tried to get lunch but it was just before 11:00, and nobody was serving food quite yet. We sat down to wait a few minutes but it turns out that sitting quietly with a touch of sea sickness is a bad idea, so we got up to walk it off for a little while longer. Our B&B was about 10 minutes up the hill from the center of Kilronan, the biggest village on the island. This was the view from our window.

This church was down the road, across from the pub where we ate lunch.

Then we walked back into town to rent bicycles. The guy didn't take our names or anything, just took twenty euro and told us to pick whatever we wanted. I guess they figure you aren't going to steal them, since a) the people on the ferry would probably not let you on with a stolen bike and b) the bikes are in sub-optimal condition.

We set out across the island for Dun Aengus, a Stone Age hilltop fort, 7 kilometers away. None of the guidebooks glowingly recommending bike rental mentioned that this route was mostly uphill, at least for the first 2/3rds. Also I had not been on a bike in approximately 2 years. The first half hour was touch and go. It was gorgeous, though. The whole island is criss-crossed with miles and miles of stone walls. A German woman at our B&B described it as "a desert of stone walls." It's a completely unique and eerie landscape, like nothing I've seen anywhere else.

There were lots of other bikes at Dun Aengus when we arrived. After this you have to climb 1km up a hill to reach the fort.

The landscape here is the same sort of limestone as in The Burren, just across the sea.

Up, up, up to the fort.

Clearly the Iron Age people chose this location for a reason. You feel like you're on the edge of the earth.

The fort is composed of several concentric rings.

And the whole thing looks like it was quarried from scratch and built last week. These stones have been sitting here, piled up like this, for five thousand years.

This was the first rainbow we saw in Ireland.

There was nobody at all exploring the outer rings of the fort, the entire time we were there.

In between two of the rings there are a bunch of limestone spikes stuck into the ground as a deterrent for invaders. It would be hard to get an army through there, I guess, but also has an intense creepy intimidation factor.

Naturally Ben went beyond the fence. ALWAYS BEYOND THE FENCE.

My coworker who is from Northern Ireland told me if we like remote places to "go to the Aran Islands. There's nothing there." He was right. It's amazing that people live here.

When we first arrived at the fort there were a fair number of people wandering around. The ferries run three times a day and most people only do day trips, so whenever a ferry unloads everybody heads out for Dun Aengus, and the heads back again to catch the return ferry. It was kind of fun being out here on the edge of the earth with all these people - this is a sight you really have to earn if you want to visit.

We were staying overnight so we had plenty of time on our hands. We waited for the people to leave.

Before we set back for Kilronan on the bikes, we stopped at the cafe at the bottom of the hill for coffee & a snack. They only had about four items left and were sweeping the floor. We took our snack outside and they shut and locked the door behind us!

We took the sea road back, which turned out to be flatter and less trafficked than the high road out. There is supposed to be a seal colony on the beach but we didn't see any seals.

Lots of cows, though.

It's really hard to explain just how strange this place feels.

Upon returning to Kilronan, we had some time to kill before dinner and decided to ride down to the Eastern side of the island. We left the bikes on the road and hiked out the last kilometer to the end. When we came up over the last hill, we discovered this entire field full of dozens and dozens of bunnies. As soon as they saw us they all disappeared into the ground.

From this point you can see across to the next of the islands, Inishmaan.

Our trusty bikes nearly killed us on the final ride back to town. The wind was absolutely crazy and we had to ride straight into it the entire time. Even going downhill, you could never stop pedaling hard for a second. It was rough. We had intended to keep the bikes overnight and return them the next morning but left them at the store instead.

Fortunately the best pub on the island was just down from our B&B, so we had dinner there and then went home and went to sleep.