Ireland Day 4 - Dingle!

The morning hike (Adam).

Today I woke up early to hike around Dunmore Head! I jest... Adam and Ethan woke up super early to hike around Dunmore Head! I woke up at 9.30 and hiked down to the beach with Dad. It was a great beach, all sorts of nooks and crannies, a few caves, even a tunnel! Plus waves crashing violently, what more could you want?   While my dad followed me over a weird slippery wet climb I told him "I tend to forget you're 60."

"Me too" he replied.

We packed up and headed out from our beach house to continue around the Dingle Peninsula. After a few miles we came upon a lookout spot. Why not? The younger generation made our way across a marshy path up to the rocky point - and then headed up to the next rocky point a bit higher up and further out! We repeated this process for ten minutes until we found the best rocky point. Not that it really mattered, since they all had amazing views. On the way back to the car we passed a pile of rocks, which of course we had to add to. Hopefully some future archaeologist will ascribe some great meaning to it. Maybe we were "collectively creating permanence, forging order out of chaos, contributing to something larger than ourselves in defiance of the transitory nature of life." Honestly, it just seemed like the thing to do.  (Editors note: Found it!)

Adam's second contribution, after I asked him to recreate that photogenic thing he did.

After we got back to the parents and the car we continued down to Clogher Strand - the beach we saw from the lookout. This beach - known from several famous movies I'd never heard of - had caves even larger than the previous beach next to our cottage. Ethan, Dad, and myself went down to check it out. The beach was covered in perfect green Irish rocks, and the breaking of the waves was even more violent and impressive. One of the caves was in the midst of said impressive violence, but the other cave was invitingly easy to access. We walked in and, eyes adjusting slowly, Ethan almost stepped in a puddle, I saw his mistake and safely crossed, and Dad nailed it and ended up with a wet shoe. Super neat cave though, deep, picturesque, boobytrapped - everything you could want in a cave.

Clogher Strand, with The Dead Man in the background (Adam)

Sketchy (Dad)

Less Sketchy! (Mom)

Continuing across Dingle (via a handful of increasingly sketchy overlooks, of course)  we stopped at a Gallarus Oratorium, a beehive-style chapel. This church was (potentially) 1400 years old, and had amazing stonework - all the joints sloped out to repel rain, all the windows somewhat conical, huge lintels, even stones with holes to hang a door embedded in the walls, and no need for mortar anywhere. Mom said I had to mention the Fuchsia lining the path, which "matches my red coat that looks so good in the pictures." She's not wrong. The Fuchsia and the coat are both exceptionally photogenic, especially in such a green country.

Very lucky "Reach as high as you can and hope" shot

For lunch, we stopped in the town of Dingle. It's essentially a tourist trap, famous for Fungie the dolphin - This released aquarium wild dolphin loves people and began by visiting all the fishermen, and now visits basically every tourist boat that goes out to meet him. There's a statue for him, and I did my favourite tourist-trap-thing and cranked out a smashed euro-nickle (featuring Fungie, of course). We grabbed a few souvenirs and lunch at a grocery store, before heading on our way over Connor's Pass.

We drove up into the clouds over a windy road filled with warning signs, and then dropped out the other side to great views of glacier-carved valleys, moraines, and waterfalls. We stopped at one scenic outlook which would have been exceptionally scenic were it not swamped with cars.

Instagram

Real Life

After that, we just boogied northward towards the Cliffs of Moher. Got on some "M-roads" (aka real highways with American-width lanes!) and put down the kilometers. What amazes all of us is the casualness with which they treat their ancient ruins. Some are signed, most aren't. Despite our research and maps we'll have no idea some castle ever existed except a glimpse of a keep in a field as we fly by on the M18. We skipped past Limerick, but if anyone asks I'll claim to have been there, and arrived at our hotel in Doolin around dinnertime. As always, Mom did a great job of researching, and we ended up with a great apartment We have a view of ruins and horses out the back windows, and the front windows have a view of more ruins and more horses. Unfortunately, Mom being a mom, she also made sure to ask and all the ruins are on private property and strictly verboten.

We walked out to dinner at sunset, eventually choosing the last restaurant on the road, which was a great choice as their cider and lamburgers were on point. Eventually we walked home, with brief stops to listen to trad music through a pub window and checked out Mars and some stars. Now we're back at our sweet apartment for some wine, cards, and general chilling.