Day 13, 23 May 2012

Our first day operating out of our new base.  We were, honestly, pretty worn out, so we decided to make an easy day of it, especially since we needed to buy some groceries.  We lollygagged around the house, had a leisurely breakfast and loaded up the doom wagon.

The cliffs of Moher.

Our big plan for the day was to go to the cliffs of Moher.  These are most famous for their roll in the Harry Potter movie when Potter and Dumbledore find Valdemorts thingamajiggy on a pinnacle of rock in a raging sea.  We were going to be visiting these from the land side, which is 600 to 1000 feet above the sea.

The map of the visitor center and trails.

There is a large visitor center/museum built into the side of a hill.  It looks like the world's biggest hobbit hole.  Inside they have the, obligatory, tea room, a gift shop and a museum concentrating on the history and natural history of the cliffs.  They have some fun interactive exhibits for the kids, which the boys loved.  They also have fun interactive exhibits for the adults, which kept us busy for awhile too.

Hobbit hole shops.

One of the exhibits.

The building curves around a central atrium with exhibits on the walls and in rooms off of the ramp.  When you get to the top they have a cafeteria and the doors out to the cliffs.  There are sidewalks, walls and fences.  They run all the way along the cliffs.

It's a bumpy ride.

The day before, while we were at the beach in Doolin, a man had leaped off of the cliffs.  They have stopped reporting when this happens because they are afraid of copy cats.  One thing they might report is that the winds are so strong that they blow people back into the rock, so they get dragged down the face of the cliff before they die at the bottom.  They brought that bloke's body in while we were down there though, happily, we did not see it and the boys had no idea what was going on.

Standing on the top it is easy to see how accidental falls could happen too.  Every year some people just get too close to the edge and fall over.  Same result as the deliberate jump.  If you stay behind the walls and fences you should be ok.  I say should be because the wind there was truly amazing.

A wall.  With a 600 foot drop on the other side.

There was a woman playing a harp.  I couldn't hear her until I was standing directly in front of her, three feet away.  At four feet she was inaudible again.  Tracy had me hold onto both boys because she was, literally, afraid the wind would carry them away.  My plans to walk down the trail to the far headland were shelved immediately due to the winds.

The tower.

On top of the visitor center is the O'Brien tower.  This was built as a watch tower in the 1700s to watch out for Napoleon and pirates.  There is a charge to get in, which we decided not to pay.  We looked down "Oooh, we're very high".  We looked along the cliffs.  We took pictures, trying to arrange to not have tourists behind us.  That proved difficult but not impossible.

Huddling out of the wind.

After that there really wasn't much to do.  We didn't want to brave the wind to visit the rest of the cliffs and the boys wanted ice cream.  I took them down to the tea shop and loaded them each up with an ice cream cone.  Granddad and I got coffee and the boys settled in to the serious business of eating their cones before the ice cream melted.  That mission accomplished, we walked back to the car.

This is at the cliffs of Moher.

Looking over towards Liscannor

Once crammed into the van we continued on along the road, through the town of Liscannor in which the inventor of the first operational and successful submarine, was born.  John Holland was interested in inventing a submarine to allow the Irish to attack the Royal Navy.  He ended up building boats for the U.S. Navy.  There was nothing in town to point to any of this, though we didn't stop and look on foot.

We zipped on to Ennistymon where there was a Fitzgerald's, a supermarket like Tesco.  Owyn had crashed in the car so I ended up carrying him into and around the store.  When I finally made him walk he was pretty wavy on his legs.  It took the whole visit for him to wake up.  We were able to score more beans and tortillas for the boys, making them both very happy.  We also laid in a significant amount of rations for the rest of us, which we successfully finished off before we left.

Following the shopping it was back to the house, unload all and sundry and just chill around the ranch.  They boys played outside for two hours.  Granddad and I talked to the owner, Martin, who makes Granddad seem shy and retiring.  We got everyone fed and the boys to bed and then sat around and watched mystery and cop shows until we all crashed.  It stayed light until 2230, we were so far north.