This morning’s weather – sunshine with rain. But hey, it’s warm.
We sorted out the Van and left Doolin, following the coastal road towards The Burren, an area of natural beauty, on our way to the Galway coast. We had tapped in a postcode of a possible campsite into the satnav, but as usual, it chose the quickest/shortest route – it still hadn’t read the memo about our road trip. So we kept punching in names of little villages along the WAW so we could admire the scenery and not worry about where we were going.
It started off as gentle rolling countryside, but gradually, the unique limestone landscape of the Burren took over and it’s just stunning. Mile upon mile of limestone pavements running from tops of hills and mountains down into the sea. It’s almost moonlike, surreal and nature at its best. Then the limestone gives way to green fields and little cottages before it takes over again. It’s just an amazing sight with hill upon hill covered in grey stone. It is quite majestic.
The country roads of the Burren seem to be popular with scenic coach tours and the drivers of these mammoth behemoths are a bit mad. The coaches – huge 54 seater plus – are so wide that they actually take part of your side of the road, but the drivers ignore that trifling fact and bear down on oncoming vehicles regardless, showing no signs of slowing down, let alone stopping. The times we pulled over to let them whizz through. At one point, we had one behind us and it was like a re-enactment of the film “The Duel”.
We hugged the limestone coast, passing pretty cottages and villages. There’s lots of thatched dwellings dotted around and Ballyvaughan was particularly attractive. It’s a lovely coastal drive overlooking Galway Bay. We turned left off the main road to find Traught Beach for The Pup – the van had to limbo under a height barrier again – and The Pup had a good 20 minute stretch of the legs as we noticed that the dark rain clouds were starting to gather.
We passed through Kinvara, a pleasant little town and onto Galway city. The countryside had flattened out again as we took the main road and entered Galway’s outer suburbs. We took the ring road, missing out the city centre, just as the heavens opened which wasn’t great timing – now we were in the midst of multiple lanes, traffic lights, retail parks, all sorts of road signs pointing everywhere, other road users who knew what they were doing while trying to figure out how to get out of it all. It was a bit of a culture shock to be thrown into that melee after two weeks of gentle motoring.
We got burped out on the other side, relatively unscathed, but we were now hungry and needed sustenance. A Tesco supermarket appeared in the distance and I offered to shop as our cupboards were bare. I haven’t shopped in a big supermarket for ages (I forgot to take an euro for the trolley to start with and had to go back to the van) so I spent many minutes wandering around lost and disorientated. Its layout was weird with products tucked in little corners and there were two prices on display. I thought I was getting bargains but it was the lower price if you were a loyalty card holder, which I’m not. I was glad to escape, but I got food for a couple of days which would keep us going.
We were now on the southern Galway coastline heading to a place called Spiddal/Spiddle, depending on what map you looked at. The Pup has taken to lying across me and sticking her head out of the window for short periods (she is secured in btw) which is great for her, but I freeze. We pulled up in a quayside car park overlooking the bay and scoffed the recently bought sarnies, feeling much better for it. A quick cuppa to wash it down and we continued our journey.
The scenery was changing yet again. Now it was craggy countryside with stone walls separating the land into tiny overgrown plots of fields. The road signs were all Gaelic rather than the dual signs – there was hardly any English. We followed the coast as it got even more prettier. We had decided to travel further and were now heading to a place called Gurteen Bay, but along the way, we got sidetracked and headed to the Lettermore and Dog Islands as we had read they were worth visiting. And they were. We only went so far as we realised we were pushing for time for our final destination, but they were very pretty. Little bays, coves, inlets interspersed little fields and lagoons. Bridges took you over the water to the next island. It was still craggy with large boulders poking out between the grass and thatched cottages. We ended up with an impromptu little tour trying to get back on the main road (the satnav does have its uses) and we got lovely long distance views over to the mountains – it just had a feel of wildness about it, a remoteness despite cottages dotted everywhere. It was so beautiful.
The weather closed in big style, blotting out the mountains with rain – it was like being in a plastic box. We just knew there were stunning views out there, but we just couldn’t see them which was rather disappointing. We were gradually rising and headed out into moorland and total wilderness. There was nothing out here, not even hardy animals apart from heaps of peat bricks being harvested with plastic bags everywhere. Even the trees couldn’t be bothered to grow here – it was a windswept and wild landscape, atmospheric in the low cloud. And then we were back to the chocolate box crofter cottages, some of them sporting a thatched roof, little bays and inlets and hugging the coast again – just stunning scenery. This was amazing despite the grey weather – what would it be like if the sun was out?
We arrived at Gurteen Bay campsite on spit of land near the pretty little village of Roundstone. It overlooked a little cove of sand. We quickly checked in as the rain had stopped and the cloud lifted so we had a window. Again, we faffed around a bit, mainly as there was a stiff breeze and we needed to get the van at the right angle. Finally satisfied, we took The Pup to the beach and was only there for a few minutes when it started to rain again. We retreated and decided to make tea for us and The Pup while the rain washed the van. It did stop later and we took the opportunity to go back onto the beach and investigate further – there were two or three other sweeping beaches on Gurteen Bay side as well as at least another over the narrow fields and dunes into Dog’s Bay. We reached a high point next door to the unexpected graveyard and tried to figure out if we could reach Dog’s Bay from Gurteen (there was only a sliver of land separating the two) – it would need a further beach walk to find out.
We turned around as it was chilly and walked along the sand, The Pup was running in and out of the water, scooping up seaweed and giving it a good shake, doing zoomies and digging in the sand. Basically living life to the full, she was so happy. It was a lovely spot. We turned around again when we spotted numerous jellyfish stranded on the beach and headed back to the campsite. It was here when we realised each and every static caravan on site was tied down, literally anchored so they didn’t topple in the winds. We had noticed on our walk a noticeboard explaining the ongoing recovery of the conservation area due to concurrent storm damage. No wonder the caravans were nailed down – think it gets a bit windy here. We sauntered back to our van, nestled in a little dip and sheltered from the wind and settled down for the evening. Tomorrow we had a plan of moving a little further up the coast, staying a couple of nights and checking this area out thoroughly.
Footnote: apologies for my wonky photos with the horizon not straight. My iPhone won’t let me straighten them up at the moment, despite various attempts to sort the problem. But I’m working on it – just bear with me!
apathtosomewhere 