Busy Sunny Monday

This will be long with LOTS of pictures. Fair warning. Feel free to scroll.

Forecast was iffy and the morning wasn’t promising. There was some sun, but also intermittent showers. But the day turned out to be beautiful. Cool (low 50’s) but lots of sun. There is a lot to tell you and a lot of pictures.

In the morning we watched the oystermen arrive for work early. There were lots of them – a dozen at least. Alas, we didn’t get to chat them up. Maybe tomorrow. They were moving crates of oysters up the road for delivery to customers. You can see their little boat checking the oyster bed crates in the bay.

Click on the galleries below to bring up scrollable windows with full size pictures – the gallery previews may show just thumbnails of the pictures.

Hoping for the best weather-wise, we headed out on a road trip. First stop on the trip was an overlook that viewed Narin-Portnoo Beach in the far distance.

Then we actually arrived at Narin-Portnoo Beaches. It’s a beautiful setting, and we had a nice walk on the beach. One woman was swimming. 52º!! Interesting beach concepts in the last two pictures. Kudos to the beach admins for that. (Two pictures are darker than they should be because I had accidently changed a camera setting. I could have brightened them up, but I didn’t bother.)

The town is above the beaches, and it provides another spectacular view looking back down. Below the normal pics is a panorama. (Sue: the graveyard pic is not the Val Brady you knew well!)

Some random pics along the drive:

Next stop was in Ardara, a pretty town in Donegal. We visited the church to light candles, and we stopped in the Donegal Tweed Center. 25+ years ago we stopped in Ardara to visit Eddie Doherty’s Pub & Weaving Shop where we bought two woolen throws that he weaved in the back room of the pub. We still have them and use them all winter at home. Now he is a world famous weaver. The throws are exponentially more expensive than when we got them. We drove by the pub/shop, but we didn’t stop.

Next stop – Glengesh Pass (Malaidh Ghleann Gheis), a beautiful mountain pass on the road. Pictures are all that’s necessary. Tried a selfie which worked but didn’t show the background well.

On then to Malin Beg and it’s beautiful Silver Strand, often called the most beautiful beach in the world. We chatted with a nice couple from Massachusetts (Cape Cod and Jamaica Plain). We lamented the Bruins, celebrated the Celtic’s advance to the East finals, and applauded the Red Sox who seem to be doing better than expected. There are stairs down to the beach – 174 steps. We skipped that and enjoyed it from above. That was a good decision because of some walking coming up later. Anyway, here are the Silver Strand pictures. The greens and the blues are beautiful.

Next we started looking for a place for a late lunch. There are a few scenes along the roads including one of a lighthouse on an island (using telephoto lens). Also, there’s a panorama below the gallery. We stopped in An Charraig (Carrick) for lunch at Kelly’s Kitchen Pub. It was good – Elaine had open faced prawn and smoked salmon sandwiches; I had fish and chips. Elaine had a Smithwick’s. I had Coke Zero – lots more driving to do. Guinness tends to encourage a nap.

As you can see from the Kelly’s menu cover above, Carrick is the town nearest the famous Slieve League cliffs. It was getting late (3 pm), but the cliffs were only five kilometers away, so . . . Well, when you get there, there is a lower parking lot right off the road and an upper parking lot well up the mountain. We didn’t know any better, so we opted to park at the lower lot and walk up. (It turns out the upper lot was full and there was a wait to drive up to it.) But exercise is good! Well, the lower lot is MUCH lower. It’s a long, steep uphill slog (well over a mile) to get to the upper level. We barely made it, and several times considered turning around. I’m glad we didn’t. From the upper level, you can climb even higher to the top of the mountain. Maybe fifteen years ago we might have. We got good enough pictures from where we had struggled up to with our Sherpa guide. The Cliffs of Moher are more famous and more visited and easier to get to, but the Slieve League is fantastically beautiful. Note our photo that a nice man took for us – you may see it again on our Christmas card. Also note the “Eire” in stone on the side of the mountain. And those sheep have a great view. Do sheep (or cows) look at the view?

The climb down was much easier but still tough on the knees. I brought my elastic knee braces with me to Ireland, but I haven’t needed them. The old joints are holding out. From there it was straight home. There were a couple of views along the trip.

Dinner consisted of Magnum Bars at home after outdoor cocktails. We got another great (for Ireland) sunset. Note Elaine taking her own picture.