Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

Yesterday was a full day. We got up at 5:15 A.M. and caught a taxi to the Heuston train station. We had a little bit of a wait before we were to check in for our trip to Aran Islands.

After checking in we were taken off to our waiting train. We would be traveling for 3 hours on our way across the country to Galway located on the west coast of Ireland. There were a bunch of new fancy trains, but the one we ended up on seemed kinda old and run down. Ours is the one on the right side of this picture.

We piled into the train and got a little overview of our trip from Vincent our “tour guide”. We found out that Vincent would only be accompanying us on the west bound train portion of the trip. Our care changed hands quite a few times throughout the day.

The train ride was beautiful. The countryside is very green, and traveling from one side of the country to the other we saw the landscape transform from trees and hills to flat countrysides covered with rock fences. We did come across a few big churches that were very castle looking.

When we finally made it into Galway. We were taken to a little tour bus that would drive us the 17 miles along the coast to the airport where we would fly to the Aran Islands from. So we were handed off to the driver of the bus and we said good by to Vincent forever.

When we arrived at the airport Erin and I were feeling a bit like we had stepped into the Bering Air “terminal” in Unalakleet. We were asked to step on a scale to get our body weight, and how much our bags weighted, and then were asked to have a seat until our flight was ready. We were flying on a BN2 Islander a high wing plane with two engines allowing us to fly over the ocean.

We all were put in the plane which had 4 rows of seats behind the pilot, two seats per row. We lifted off and began our 15 minute flight over to the island. When we landed on the island we were taken into the “terminal” by the airport which doubled as the fire hall.

We were then put on another transport fan with a fellow speaking fluent Gaelic over his radio. We drove up into town and were transfered to another van with a different driver. He gave us a tour around town. The community is very compact. All of the houses are pretty much in the same general area. The country side as well as the road is lined with rock fences. Its like a patchwork quilt covering the land. Driving around was a little interesting since the road was very narrow, and when meeting oncoming vehicles you had to drive awfully close to the rock walls.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/05/driving.mov 320 260]

We were taken up to the entrence of the hike to Dun Aonghas fort located atop 300 foot cliffs on the Atlantic side of the island. It was raining out and a little chilly, but the hike to the top warmed us up. This is truly an amazing place. The cliffs are spectacular. It is weird getting that close to a cliff of that nature. The water swirling down below and a sheer drop strait down. I contemplated jumping, and Erin was quick enough to snap a picture before I changed my mind.

On our hike back down Erin tried to see what was inside a little house on the side of the trail. She was unable to get the door open, so we hiked back down to a little cafe strategically placed at the trail head where we each had a delicious bowl of homemade tomato soup, a piece of brown bread, and shared a piece of carrot cake. It was all very tasty and the soup was perfect after being out in the cold rain all day. After our little lunch they gave us plenty of time to look through the local shops. We then did the trip back to Dublin in reverse. Van back to the airport, plane back to the main land, van back to Galway, a short wait for our train to arrive. Then a three hour packed train ride back to Dublin. We both took little naps on the train. After our taxi ride back to the hotel we went down to the restaurant in the hotel and had a couple of drinks and appetizers. I had my first pint of Guinness which was okay, but something I’d need to drink more of if I planned to truly enjoy the experience. I was a tired kid by the end of that day and crashed hard when we got back to the room.

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