Cliffs of Moher

We thought we’d take it easy today after yesterday’s exertions, and so we started the day off with a walk down to the local village.  We had a good look around the harbour (first extra), where we found an amusing local dog.  He/She carefully plucked the stem of a plant and laid it down on the ground near us.  Sharon took pity on the dog and threw it in the air, and which point the dog jumped up and caught it in mid air.  This game continued until the stem fell apart!

We then visited the Submarine Museum.  John P. Holland comes from this area and he played a role in the development of early submarines whilst he was in America in the 1900s.  The British probably don’t recognise his contribution as he was putting effort into the independence movement for Ireland, and some of his builds were funded by the Fenians.  A sculpture of him leaving his first submarine (second extra) has pride of place in the museum.  It’s always interesting seeing photos from this period - he emerges from the submarine in a full three piece suit, compete with tie and hat!

We then bought some lunch from the service station and walked back towards the harbour to eat it.  We stopped off at a gallery on the way and marvelled at some oil painting seascapes, buying a couple of cards.

After returning to the cottage we drove through to Lehinch and had a cup of tea and a wander on the beach.

We decided to go through to the Cliffs of Moher for sunset (main blip) where we took photos and watched the sun go down.  There’s a tower here which looked lovely in silhouette (third extra).  The landscape looked amazing in the fading light, and the sun made a great line across the water (fourth extra).

Before sunset, we were exploring the cliffs to find good angles to photograph from.  I watched two Jet Skis arrive at the foot of the main sea stack, and watched a passenger from each get off and stand at the base of the stack on the flat rock.  After a while, they got back on and all four people returned back to wherever they came from!  You may be able to see them if you look carefully at the last extra.

We finally go back to the cottage just before nine, and we still had to cook dinner so everything was very late.

When we looked at our step counters, it turned out that we’d walked even further than yesterday - 8 miles - so much for taking it easy today!