Ireland: Day 7

This was meant to be the easy, lazy day of the trip. Instead, it turned out to be very tiring, but rewarding. It started off by taking the ferry to Inishmore in the Aran islands. The plan was to get a bike and do a lazy lap around the island for the day. Well, first I set off in a direction with a vague map of the island and figured out there wasn't a road going all the way around the island. As I was biking along, I spotted a border collie along the road. When he got up and started running toward me, I got a little nervous. As evidenced by the one who bit my car, these type of dogs can be very outgoing or very territorial. This one turned out to be outgoing. He started running alongside my bike and kept speeding up like he was trying to race me. Not to be outdone, I went faster. After a while, this got to be very tiring, plus I was losing (in fact he'd run ahead, take a pee, then take off again when I caught up). Before I collapsed, there was a downhill and I caught back up with him. I sped up and slowed down a bit to egg him on before coasting my way to victory at the bottom of the hill. I hadn't planned to go to that place, but that's where the dog was going and I was following the dog. It turned out we ended up at a secluded cove with a wide sandy beach. There were no footprints, so I was the first person there that day. Once I'd walked around to the far side, the dog ran off and started digging in the seaweed. He came back with a stick and laid it at my feet. Not completely believing this, I threw the stick. And he fetched the stick and brought it back. So I threw it again, and again, and again. Eventually, I started thinking I might be there all day throwing the stick for the dog. But, he did get tired, and I was able to slowly work my way back to where I'd left the bike. From there I followed along behind him up a farm track to a nice panoramic view over the town. The dog was quite a good tour guide.


From there I went up to an old oratory on a hill, and then to some cliffs much like those at Moher.

From there, I decided to take the high road to Dun Aonghasa, an ancient hill fort on the other side of the island. This turned out to be a very slow process, but once I got to here

it got much faster, at least until I reached the bottom.

The fort was huge and quite well preserved for its age. I stayed there a while before biking back along the coast road to Inishmore to catch the last ferry home, sore and tired.

Rest of the pics are here,