It was raining and we had run out of gas.
The gas stopped just as the kettle whistled for our first cuppa of the day – phew, but now we would have to source another bottle. The trouble is, there is no way of way of knowing when it’s running out – no gauge or anything, so it’s a bit of a guessing game. As we were staying another night, there was no rush – we got up slowly, had a leisurely shower, tidied the van and got coffee from the campsite’s own little coffee hut.
The weather apps on the phones were proving useless as they were saying sunshine and we still had horizontal drizzle.
Finally we decided to go and find a nearby beach for The Pup as it looked like the rain was easing up. However as we left for our walk (the big plan was to not drive the van at all today), the heavy drizzle reappeared so we ended up walking slightly hunched and with heads down. Doolin is split into two parts – our end where we staying had a couple of pubs, a hotel, a couple of little shops and is relatively quiet. Walk five minutes or so down the road and there’s another huddle of shops, but a lot more touristy – jumpers and icecream and gifts with roadside parking. It’s a bit narrow here, so with people milling around and trying to park their cars, it seems all slightly chaotic. We carried on, but started to think we had missed the path to the beach. We stopped by a pitch and putt course and studied the route – it seemed there wasn’t a path at all. We could carry on down to Doolin pier or have a game of golf and it didn’t take long for us to make a decision.
We skipped over the cattle grid, checked if The Pup could join us, gathered a driver and putter each, four balls and a handful of tees and set off in the drizzle to the first tee. The Pup thought it was a great game – she wanted to chase every ball taken at the tee, so we had to hang onto her lead, hubby’s shots were great but had a tendency to veer right or left and I just scudded my ball along the grass though I did manage to get them airborne later in the game. The Pup kept nicking our balls and then dropping them – usually in a better position than where they landed. The rain stopped and the stiff breeze dried us off as we finished 18 holes minus two balls (one had disappeared over the wall, narrowly missing two passing walkers and a Skoda) and thought it was the funniest thing we had done for ages.
We wandered back to our end of Doolin with the plan to catch the normal service bus to the Cliffs of Moher, hoping they would take dogs onboard. With 30 minutes to kill before it arrived, we found a coffee shop. Hubby lingered outside with Pup while I went in to suss it out, but the young lad behind the counter told us that we could bring the Pup in! We’re so confused with the dog policy here – the pub won’t let you in, but the coffee shop does! The Pup made friends with a chap by the door who proffered chips to her, before she worked on the other people in the cafe and hoovered up all the dropped bits on the floor. We sat outside and drank our coffee before joining the queue for the bus. It rolled up on time and Hubby boarded to check if Pup was allowed and guess what? The answer was no. Even the bus driver thought it was nuts too.
We watched the bus disappear round the corner, cursing. Ireland is a lovely place, full of friendly, happy and very helpful people, but seemed to be very dog unfriendly and thinking about it, we hadn’t seen many dogs at all on this trip (no wonder Pup gets all the attention – she’s the only hound around). Now, we are not the type of owner who thinks we’ve got a right to take our dog everywhere we go, there has to be restrictions of course, but in England, dogs are allowed on public transport and certain retail outlets (in the Lake District, you are a pariah if you don’t allow dogs in your shop). We had heard that it was due to health and safety reasons in Ireland which we totally understand – some dogs can be snappy, but it’s more the owners than the dogs to be honest – but it can be quite restrictive on what you could do with your pet.
We wandered back to the van despondently. We had booked tickets for the Cliffs of Moher last night and now wished we hadn’t. We had only one option now – pack the van down and drive to the cliffs, putting paid to our van free day. We put everything away, leaving out a plastic sheet and our water container, so nobody pinched our pitch and headed off. On the way we stopped at a small petrol station cum village shop to see if we could get our hands on a new gas canister, but alas they didn’t have one.
The Cliffs were only about 15 minutes away and we pulled into the large car park, showed our tickets at the kiosk and parked up. Across the road, we joined the rest of the tourists wandering around up a tarmac path, with half a dozen shops buried into the hill like something out of The Hobbit. The Visitor Centre was similarly embedded which was kind of attractive. The path snaked up a hill towards the cliffs where we found ourselves engulfed by a Japanese coach party – we paused to let them go. At the edge of the cliffs, the path went either left or right (it’s part of a long coastal path) and we peered over the wall with several other people to look at the towering cliffs disappearing into the distance. They were fairly dramatic and impressively tall – we decided to take the right hand path and wandered along, pausing to take a photo, watch the seabirds and just to admire the cliffs, but with so many people around with their holiday heads on, it was becoming mildly irritating. Think our patience finally wore thin when two Japanese women barged us out of the way for a photo opportunity and we realised that this just wasn’t our thing. We wandered a bit more in case the scenery changed, but at the end of the day, cliffs are cliffs. We walked back to the visitor centre to use the facilities (no dogs allowed inside the buildings – here we go again) and went to find the van. We had been here about an hour which was enough – perhaps the no dog policy on the bus had done us a favour, it was a 2 hour wait for the bus home.
So we drove back to Doolin on the lofty main road, looking down on Doolin and the surrounding area. In the distance was another campsite and they sold gas bottles. We already had a contingency plan if that went belly up too. Our campsite had a kitchen for those camping in tents so we could make cups of tea in there if need be. So we wheedled our way through the chaotic end of Doolin, down to the pier and went to the campsite’s little shop. Hubby emerged triumphant, clutching a brand new bottle and we were saved. We headed back for a cuppa.
The weather had brightened up considerably by now and the sun was attempting to make an appearance. We returned back to our pitch and reset the van, chilling and trying to dry our damp clothes from this morning.
Around 7pm with the sun finally out, we waddled back down to Russell’s, the little place where we got coffee and The Pup hoovered up for them. In the evenings, they have a restaurant and got a reputation for the best fish and chips in Ireland amongst other things. Inside, it was decked in wood and dark colours, but was very trendy – it was already busy. As we had The Pup we sat in a large room under a huge sail for a ceiling. It was really lovely. The Pup crashed and slept on our feet under the table while we enjoyed a lovely meal including a fabulous pecan and walnut pie. The fish and chips were fabulous. The staff were lovely and a small band of three musicians played a guitar, fiddle and squeeze box at a table, so we got live Irish music again. It was so pleasant and relaxing. Fabulous place. We sauntered back to the van and planned a vague route for tomorrow – we were heading to Galway and Connemara and it looked like it was going to be fabulous.
apathtosomewhere 