First the gripes. Our driver for our day-long trip to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher was no Tom Kirwan. Tom, who is the Flagline bus driver we have for most of our field trips, is legendary for his driving skills. And although I doubt he would consider himself a tour guide, whenever he does give information or background it is always accurate, concise, and insightful.
Our driver for this tour was a friendly, good-natured guy, but his information was spotty and his driving, to put it mildly, lacked Tom’s finesse. Now, we were never endangered; it wasn’t like that. Just a little rockier than we’re accustomed to – a missed turn and a side mirror swiped on a sedan in Lisdoonvarna.
So, on to the good part. The day was glorious – sunny, not too windy, and relatively warm. Here is a map of our route to accompany the pictures.
We traveled south-west from Galway through Ballyvaghan, and then right along the Atlantic Coast to see the burren. The burren was created by the retreating glacier. It's characterized by patterns of clints and grykes. The clints are expanses of limestone, and the grykes are the fissures that define them. The remind me of Ogham writing, and I like to imagine this landscape was the inspiration for it. The burren extends right into the ocean, and the Aran islands which are not too far off shore are of the same composition.
Our next stop was lunch in Doolin, where we were treated to one of these classic displays of Irish road signage.
Next stop was the Cliffs of Moher, which is the image at the top of the post. After a couple of hours there we started our return journey. We stopped at the top of Corkscrew Hill to take panoramic pictures of the burren hills, the landscape in between and the ocean and I took this shot of myself with my colleague Bob Farwell.
Our last stop was the the Aillwee Cave, where a neolithic cave-bear skull was discovered in the 1940s. I'd never been there before, and once was probably enough for me, but the students seemed to enjoy it. We saw a lovely underground waterful (left) as we wandered through our guided tour of another world. In the picture below, the guide is explaining to us the formation of tiny calcified straws that take thousands of years to form.
It took well over an hour to get back to Galway from the caves. Along the way, I snapped this from the bus window. All in all, a beautiful day.
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