We left the little town of Dingle, happy to depart the cruddy hotel we booked (another blog story all together). Instead of traveling via the main highway, we elected to take the more scenic route of the ferry from Tarbert to Killimer.
As Puget Sound folks, we have certainly taken our share of ferries. This was certainly different from our ferries. This completely open boat has flap gates on both sides allowing it to dock not onto a pier but from a slanted roadway leading into the water. After waiting about 10 minutes, we boarded the ferry along with about a dozen other cars and made our way across the River Shannon.
About halfway across we were greeted by several dolphins who were enjoying the light sprinkle of rain and open water. They didn't get too close to the ferry but close enough to see them play. Great welcome wagon to Clare County, certainly.
The West Coast of Ireland has a surprising amount of surfing (who knew?) which we enjoyed as we traversed the coastal road. We stopped for lunch in Lahinch, a small surfer town where we watched youngsters don wetsuits and take on the waves in a protected cove.
Then we headed up the hills towards the Cliffs. When we first saw the parking lot we were a bit overwhelmed. The line to just park was ridiculously long. And that didn't even include the tour busses! I was honestly skeptical of this stop - could we really enjoy the natural wonder before us with thousands (I feel like tens of thousands was not an unreasonable estimate) of others crawling around?
We made our way into the exhibit area (so crowded it was hard to see anything) and eventually out towards the cliffs. Lots of stairs and huffing breathing later, we found ourselves at the top of a ledge, belly up to a stone wall and facing the 600 foot cliffs across an expanse of water. It was stunning! The most amazing part was that the sheer noise of the waves drowned out everything else. All you had to do was point your head out towards the water and lose yourself in the peace of the place. Incredible considering the amount of distraction around us.
There are "unofficial" paths that extend out from the official pathways. These are owned by local farmers and have no safety markings or barriers. They also have frequent landslides so most of us elected to stay on the official side of the barriers. Honestly the height didn't bother me and I am easily spooked of heights.
Next stop: Galway!
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