Where we re-visit the Burren
February?! (When did that happen1?) Happy New Year everybody, from Portugal. In real time, we’re currently in Cascais, less than an hour from Lisbon.
But for the blog, we are still in Ireland, so back to the chronology. Last time, we visited the hills of Tara and Slane. Today, we decided to drive back down to County Clare and take a hike in the Burren. We saw a little of the Burren when we visited Caherconnell Stone Fort. This trip, our plan was to hike through the Burren National Park.
The Burren is rocky and the hike takes you up some steep and rocky ground.2
One of the locals we met on the path called the walk "a calf workout.” For sure. The path is rocky and very steep in places. This IS the path:
The path is well-marked, as long as you’re paying attention. (from Kevin: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.)
Okay, okay. As long as you’re not looking for, you know, an actual path.
(If you can’t tell from the photo, the camera is pointing just about straight up.)
It’s a stunningly beautiful area with unusual natural rock formations. Hard on the shoes though.3
From Kevin: Actually, this was a weird idiosyncrasy that I developed in Ireland: Whenever we encountered one of these rock piles (which was often), I took to adding just one pebble to the pile. My scientific explanation is that I was applying the butterfly effect: a tiny change in one place can ultimately cause a massive change somewhere else.
(An alternative scientific explanation is that it was my way of marking the territory to alert others that I had been there. Shaindell didn’t like my original method of marking the territory.) (Shaindell: 😮)
And we headed home. The cows were waiting for us.
And so was our ignored kitty. We woke her up.
And that’s it for the Farmhouse and County Galway. Next up: we head south to County Kerry!
Did you miss me?
Kevin & I visited Ireland once before, in 2013. We took a hike through the Burren on that visit and we remember it as being an extremely difficult hike. On a completely separate topic, some of you may remember my description of our hike up (and down) Croagh Patrick. Since that climb, we now measure the difficulty of all hikes in fractions of a Croagh Patrick. Diamond Hill, for example, was only about 0.6 of a Croagh Patrick. The Burren, it turned out was about 0.3 of a Croagh Patrick. Perspective helps.
Last time we did this hike (back in 2013), we had to throw away our boots afterwards.
Looks like fun! Looking forward to hearing more about your adventures!
Jacqueline
Wow you two. So this hike = 1 pair of hiking boots? I am impressed because: 1. you are not using hiking sticks. 2. You are not carrying a backpack full of snacks (that's what i'd do.) :-)