27^th September 2013 – Connemara day trip.

Today dawned sunny and cloudless– perfect weather for a drive around Connemara. This region to the west of Galway city makes a wonderful day trip.

We left after breakfast and made our way to Oughterard, where we visited Aughenure Castle. We don’t know how to pronounce these places, and our attempts mostly sounded vaguely Scottish. Aughenure Castle was built in the 15^th Century (which seems to have been an intensely busy time of building in this region – almost everything we've seen seems to be either 15^th or 19^th Century!).

It is a short but pleasant walk along a river to the castle – it was built on a small island in the river so it had a natural moat for defence.

The gate house is so old, and so damp, it is growing stalactites!

The walls and outer towers are mostly ruined, set in lovely countryside with cows and Connemara ponies.

The tower house is largely intact and you can go up rounds and rounds of spiral staircase. It would originally have been 6 storeys and is now only 4 – you can see where roof/floor beams would have been to divide the levels.

There is a very funny-looking defence tower inside the walls of the castle.

When we had finished exploring the castle, we headed out again. Our next stop was an old mine, abandoned in the 1860s, where silver and lead were previously mined. There were some interesting old buildings and information about the geological diversity of the area – more than any other part of Ireland.

As we continued on our way, the scenery became more and more amazing. There are rolling hills on one side and dramatic mountain peaks on the other, with beautiful blue lakes at every turn. The whole area is covered in dry stone walls, thatched roof cottages and ruined castles.

We kept heading west until we reached the town of Clifden, on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. There is a tourist drive from there called the Sky Road, and well – if the scenery was spectacular before, this was like that – but with ocean views.

This is a fairly narrow, winding road, with breathtaking views around every curve.

There is a large car park right at the top of the road, where we stopped for lunch.

We continued on, back to the main road (the Sky Road is a loop). As main roads go, the traffic wasn’t too bad – although we did have to give ways to sheep a few times.

Our next stop was Connemara National Park, where there are several walks to do, ranging from the 500m forest walk to the 7km Diamond Hill walk. We are pretty experienced bushwalkers so 7km on well marked tracks isn’t too much to attempt. The walk starts with gently sloping paths, but looking up at the hill, we knew it would get tougher!

The walk continued through amazing highland scenery, with heather and gorse, and silvery stones on the hills. The ground is a unique boggy peat which means even the paved rocky paths were oddly bouncy underfoot.

As we headed for the summit, we passed several groups of hikers who commented on how great it was to see kids doing such a tough walk – we guess these people haven’t seen many Australian bushwalks! This walk required reasonable fitness but wasn’t really strenuous. We eventually reached a pile of silvery white stones marking the very top of the hill.

We could see for miles – hills, valleys, lakes, the busy car park at Kylemore Abbey...

The walk down was just as spectacular, but a lot quicker! And now when we hear of purple heather and springy turf, we know just what they are.

We had a quick stop at the playground at the National Park visitors’ centre, then back in the car to see Kylemore Abbey. This beautiful 19^th Century building has had an eventful and rather sad history but is now home to an order of Benedictine nuns. We didn’t go in, as the day was getting away, but it will be on our list for another time!

We continued on our drive, looping back through Connemara towards Galway. We somehow took a wrong turn and ended up approaching Galway from the exact opposite direction from what we’d  planned – which wasn’t a bad thing as this way led us straight to the car park for our accommodation! We popped in to the Eyre Square shopping centre to buy some food for a picnic dinner in the square – this is the only modern shopping mall we have ever seen with a 15^th Century wall and tower inside!