Are These Sheep Yours? Yes, For My Sins : Ireland

Today we drove to the Dingle Peninsula from Adare. We toured the town of Dingle and took more nerdy photos. 

view from our B and B

Guinness for strength!

We drove the Slea Head today, one of the most beautiful drives of Ireland.  Which says a lot...why do people say that? What makes something the most beautiful anyway? This does:

Many photos will follow but first you must hear of our herding experience.  

We happened upon a spot of land with some sheep in the road. Soon into taking photos we saw their owner run out to herd them back into his land. We had a lovely time talking with Aedan and hearing all about his life in the most beautiful place on earth. 

He was hilarious. We asked "are all of these yours" and he quipped "yes....these are for my sins."

As it turns out, he owns 450 sheep! His family has been living there for hundreds of years and sometimes married there on the land. 

When I asked him about the mischief the sheep get into, he said:

They like to hop the fence and go visit the neighbors grass, they like to find feed bags and get their heads stuck in them and sometimes fall over. Last week a "bloody bull" kicked his grandma over while they were shearing him. They love to get their heads stuck in the wire fence.....

And these two sheep get out every time no matter what he does. He says they're a real pain in the arse. His accent just made everything he said sound hilarious.

What's the best is he identifies and knows all the sheep personality wise. He knew which lambs went with which moms. It was quite adorable hearing about these two "free spirit" sheep he can never keep in line. 

Chasing them from traffic

Aedan:

view down from his property:

He gave us a few dinner suggestions and then showed us the narional landmark on his property. One of the "Christian homes" that's 1500 years old. So cool!

his house

More Slea Head photos:

bird poop incident #2... used the rock wall as a railing...

SUCH narrow roads

Later, driving back into town, we saw one of his lambs sitting on the edge of the road. This "two lane" road... Catherine went to check on him and he continued to not run away like all of the other sheep, despite the speeding cars past him. He appeared hurt and she picked him up to carry him back to safety. It was only a minute or two before the lamb quit playing sick and hopped down energetically. We all imagined Aedan saying "for my sins..."

Next we drove up to Connors pass and enjoyed the views 

We had a lovely dinner in Dingle. It. Stayed light out until ~10:30 at night! 

Dingle street art!!!!!!!!

Dingle Doors

Fortune Favors the Bold : Ireland

Today, we went to the cliffs of Moher, and it was awesome! ...but we definitely had to work to get there...

Our day started with a buffet. Our hotel apparently has won awards for their Irish breakfast, and I wouldn't doubt it. There was even cheddar cheese made with Guinness, and they kept the Irish breakfast tea Coming.  

We drove towards Foynes, a tiny town with a "flying boat museum." The "two lane" roads were windy to say the least. Roads here generally have a speed limit of 100km/hr, or 62 mph for you Americans.
Roads this windy in America would never be more than 25 mph.
Some church parking lots were so full that the car parking flooded out onto the street so you can imagine the road obstacles.

As soon as we got to foynes we realized we'd already left. It was one of those towns where people could talk to each other standing at either end of it, but I'm not sure where we could've found two townspeople to test this theory. 

 And off we went to Tarbert to take a ferry to Kilrush and drive along the wild Atlantic way to the cliffs of Moher.

first windy family photo of the day

This is quite possibly the dorkiest photo you'll ever see

creepin

We were cruising down the coast on roads that were about 2-3 inches narrower than the width of two cars. 

NOTICE THE SPEED LIMIT

At the bad parts of the roads, which is all of them, It turns out that tour busses sometimes run you off of the road, and into the bushes. And sometimes those bushes have large rocks. 

not much road left...

We popped a tire which made a really dramatic noise and all too soon had the opportunity to practice our mechanical skills. The good news: it was easy to find rocks to chock our wheels and we had a nice view because, well... That's Ireland. 

We had to be resourceful when my dad cut his hand. The only thing three women had for him to stop the bleeding? A pantyliner, of course.. and yes, it did do a great job of soaking up blood. 

'Tis but a scratch

And finally we arrived at the cliffs 

Notice the shops and visitors center are nestled in the hill, and the gift shop called "Gifts of Moher"

 Windy, cold! But so incredible.

One of my favorite photos so far: This cow went to the bathroom while I was taking photos of the majestic scenery.

a wall

Catherine and I bought Irish Fisherman's sweaters on the road to the Burren. We met this nice man from Melbourne Australia, and he talked to me about how they're hoping for more PAs and healthcare providers over there. Possible career move? 

We went driving abound the countryside looking for the expansive rocky areas I've heard look like the moon in the Burren. Instead, we found ourselves driving even narrower roads for awhile looking at farm after farm. We were confused as to how we could be missing giant expanses of rock. After asking several locals for help, we finally found it.

We ran into our friend from several hours before where we bought our sweaters... What a small world.

Next, we drove to Castletown! The town that my middle name may have come from hundreds of years ago. Apparently there's one other Castletown in Ireland, but no other people named Castleton except my great aunt and myself.

And back to Adare we went