We are very disciplined when it comes to packing for our trips. We have a comprehensive list that has been developed over the years, updated as technology has moved on and as items have been lost or broken. One item on the list is an old Trangia, to which we recently added a non-stick frying pan (thanks for the suggestion Amanda). It needs a supply of gas canisters and there was one spare in the box (check!). However the packing list doesn't suggest reading the label on it. If we had done, we would have been reminded that there are six others in the shed, bought when GoOutdoors were having a deal!
As it is, we haven't used much gas as on most sites there's a Camper's Kitchen. Usually these have a fridge, freezer, sinks and a kettle. Some are tiny but others cavernous, like this:
Very reluctantly we left Renvyle beach at Tully Beg and made the short trip around the coast to west of Clifden (and very close to the house that we rented earlier). Clifden ecoBeach Campsite is run by Chris and Tatiana and it's situated above another stunning beach, about 15 minutes from the town of Clifden.
With the weather threatening to finally improve after about a week of sun, wind and rain, it wasn't safe enough to fish from the previous spot on the Aughrus peninsular, although I did take a walk there early one morning. It was so rough that I daren't go onto the fishing mark and instead just watched the sea.
During a wet evening we had posh food in the camp kitchen and then we went to Clifden to find a pub with some music.
It wasn't difficult. These guys were playing with the doors wide open and it was a great hour or two. They are a duo playing Irish folksy ballads but were getting a bit of craic from the back. It was from another musician that they know of and he was hauled on stage to sing a couple of songs. Rather than Irish traditionals, he blasted out Psycho killer and Dreadlock Holiday, to great applause.
He was supposed to be in Clifden on his holiday. Well he wasn't dressed for it as he looked as though he'd just come out of his shed, with great holes in his elbows and a generally scruffy look! BUT he could play the guitar and sing! I wish I could.
They promised that the more we drank, the better they would sound and that the more they drank the better they would think they sound. The guy on the banjos seemed to get shakey whenever his pint glass of Guinness fell below the halfway mark. It certainly turns his hair a funny colour.
We drove to the south of Clifden, firstly around the coast and then back across the bog. The tide was out and this exposes strange swathes of rocks that must make navigation extremely difficult.
On the southern part of this route are two more huge beaches, Dog's Bay and Gurteen Bay. There must be some times when the crowds flock here but not in early June.
After stopping in beautiful Roundstone, we then took the road back over the bog. This area is a true blanket bog and it absolutely amazing to see just how much water there is held up here. It would be almost impossible to walk across and on a misty day no doubt very scary. Someone managed to build the road but it undulates and probably floats as the ground moves underneath.
Clifden is the site of one of Marconi's permanent long wave radio stations, the first for transatlantic radio transmission. On 17th October 1907, 10,000 words of CW (Morse code) was sent to Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. There's little left of the huge settlement now as most was destroyed during the Irish Civil War and it closed in 1922.
Also on 15th June 1919 and when we visited it was 98 years to the day, Alcock and Brown completed the first non-stop trans-Atlantic flight and (crash) landed here. Thankfully they missed Marconi's aerials otherwise there would have been an irate Irish-Italian to deal with as soon as they clambered out of the wreckage (and if you know, as I do, what irate aerial erectors are like when their masts get destroyed, then you'll know just what I mean).
The Wild Atlantic Way attracts plenty of travellers who come to drive some or all of it. You can tell which they are as they don't stay in one place for more than a night and are usually last in and first out. (They wouldn't spot any dolphins).
For two consecutive nights the spot behind us was occupied by a couple of "campervans" with New Zealanders in them. The first night was a couple from South Island who were in a Wicked Campervan vehicle like this one
and on the second night was a solo NZ lady who had hired this VW Caddy. It will be fun for her once the weather improves but it is fairly tricky in the rain.
It is amazing to talk to travellers and to hear their stories. We even had a laugh about the Christchurch earthquake with the NZ couple. We firstly had to be polite and not laugh out loud when they told us they were hoping to see the Northern Lights, gently explaining that it's the wrong time of year and all other electromagnetic things considered, it never really gets dark in June!
No, the joke was that he thought he could see the Southern Lights one middle-of-the-night-toilet-moment in New Zealand. He had almost completed dialling his son's number to wake him up and tell him, when he realised he was looking at the post-earthquake spotlight, that was being aimed up into the night sky as a "look we are surviving" kind of symbol to everyone!
It was time to get excited as the promised warmer, drier weather wasn't far way. Firstly though there was more cloud rolling in to western Ireland...
Comments