Our last day in Ireland & meeting Connemara ponies!
Today we did lots of driving and saw some very pretty things, so let’s get into it!
First, an update on the sleep schedule. I absolutely slayed the sleeping last night, I think I was asleep by 11:30pm and woke up at 8:30am, which is honestly my sweet spot in terms of sleep I reckon. Anything less than 9 hours I’m not functionable, but 9 on the dot, we’re good to go. I felt so much better today than probably all of last week combined, not gonna lie. I was starting to get really burnt out in terms of doing lots every day, exploring at a level I definitely do not do back home, so I am relieved that I just needed some more sleep. Now I know 9 hours is really what I need, that’s helpful to be able to aim for, and I think 11:30-8:30 is a pretty realistic gap that I can do, at least whist I’m travelling with Dad.
Anyways we didn’t leave our Airbnb until 11am-ish, as there were many Irish athletes in finals this morning that we just had to watch. Also our host Teresa made croissants this morning and left some for us? We woke up in Galway to fresh croissants. Are you joking me right now? That’s heaven. They were so perfect and buttery and flaky and ugh just incredible. Teresa is officially my favourite human on the planet.
We only had 1 ‘attraction’ for the day, most of the day was driving scenic roads, which for my role of Passenger Princess, was exceedingly straight forward. Riding the high of my good night’s sleep I decided we need club bangers at 12pm on this Wednesday in rural County Galway, so that’s what we were rockin for most of the day.
Our first stop was the town of Clifden, around 40 mins out of Galway, and it was so adorable. Small streets, bunting between the buildings, lots of bookstores, colourful houses, all the bits and bobs we know I love. We found the cutest café that had so many food options, we ended up having something small as an early lunch, and a coffee (we really just needed to pee but felt bad not buying anything). Though we could’ve spent more time exploring the town, we continued, as there was quite a lot of driving on the cards today, and we had left our Airbnb a bit later than intended.
From Clifden we continued onto Sky Road, which is a loop that takes you from Clifden, along the coast of the peninsula then back around the north coast. The views from the road were stunning, and we had a relatively clear day so I got reasonably good photos. The hardest thing about views when driving in Ireland is that though they are stunning, you’re driving between 5 feet of stone wall the whole time, so actually getting the chance to capture the scenery is rare. Luckily there are lots of spots to pull over, where there have been places in the walls that have been removed for this purpose, but they come up so quickly it’s easy to miss them. I’ve got photos of what I managed to get!
I think we got to our main destination, Kylemore Abbey, at around 2pm and spent a solid 2 hours looking around. The Abbey itself was actually the Henry family home for 10 years or so in the 1860s I believe, before it was bought by the Duke and Duchess of Manchester before becoming a Benedictine. The majority of the house is inaccessible to the public as it’s still an active Benedictine nun situation, which was obviously very cool! I feel like most places of historical significance are very much being preserved and presented, the fact that this one was still current and happening felt very special to see. The Abbey is also situated on 1000 acres of woodland and forest, including another church, cemetery, walled gardens, livestock and lake. You could easily spend a full day exploring all the different buildings and trails, but we saw what we wanted to see and did the 2.5km lake walk from the gardens back down to the main Abbey which was lovely.
I was also very excited to finally meet some Connemara ponies that lived on the property, which Ireland’s only native breed of horse. They were so gorgeous, a little more stocky than the ponies back in Australia, but this makes sense when you think about the ground they have to be able to traverse. They reminded me a bit of the Icelandic ponies, these ones were maybe a little taller though. There was a 2-month-old foal as well, which, once I found this out, I just had to see. And he was so cute! Apparently, every season when their coat sheds they change coat colour, which continues until they’re around 2 years old.
Though we didn’t thoroughly explore the Victorian Walled Gardens, we could’ve spent hours there itself, there’s 6 acres of them. I’ve included a couple of pictures from just inside the entrance and they were absolutely beautiful. In the corner at the back of the picture you can see part of a glasshouse, where the Henry family were able to grow pineapples, bananas, melons etc, basically any tropical or Mediterranean produce. I bet they were the only family of the time not dying from malnutrition, they would’ve had more vitamin C than the king guaranteed. The family were entirely self-sufficient at Kylemore, so we got to see their old fire brigade, horse races, boat shed, stone mason, the whole lot. They would’ve had to have been an insanely wealthy family for the time. A talk we listened in on spoke about how this family’s demand for such high levels of employment was the reason this region recovered so quickly after the Famine compared to nearby counties. At it’s peak there were over 200 full-time staff just within the household.
From Kylemore we headed back towards Galway, which ended up being almost 2 hours with the peak hour traffic. Dad had found a scenic drive which took us in and around Killary Fjord, which was just spectacular. This was when we started to get a decent amount of rain, so the mountains and valleys with the mist and low cloud was so atmospheric, it was beautiful to drive in, albeit a challenging road to navigate. I think the photos towards the end of today’s gallery are from this section of the day.
We arrived back in Galway around 6:30pm and parked just outside the Latin Quarter, where we walked in and found somewhere for dinner. Although we were both hungry for food, we were also hungry for a nice hot shower and some Olympic-watching, so we were in and out of that pub in probably under 40 minutes. I had a steak and Guiness stew (my favourite Irish meal) and honestly I think I might actually be in love with Irish stews. It’s a perfect mix of flavour, meat and veggies, it’s the first thing I’m going to learn how to cook when I’m in the same place for a bit. I feel like it’ll be absolutely amazing in winter, can’t wait!
Tomorrow we say goodbye to Ireland and venture into Northern Ireland for the first time! It’s going to be potentially the longest driving day so far, but we don’t have many detours planned so it may actually not be, who knows. It’s going to be so weird going back to using pounds, especially when the accent will still sound so similar. I can’t wait to see if there’s much different between the 2 countries, will report back soon and let you know! Although currently I’m going to finish my night by catching up on House of the Dragon, I’ve somehow managed to avoid spoilers on this week’s episode but I finally have time now to watch it. I’m just hoping Daemon leaves Harrenhal for god’s sake.
Currently MIA,
Lauren x
