The quest for Craggy Island

We awoke to another fine day, and quickly striking camp headed south again towards Doolin, where we caught the Ferry to Inishore.

 Upon arrival Sonny and Blue wasted no time in running off to find Father Ted’s house, singing the theme tune as they went. The island was fascinating, it was incredible how much work people had put into making the small fields with their high stone walls, and it was quite sad to think we were looking at them as a thing of history, the island no longer had the pride of supporting itself, but relied on outside help. We kicked a football around the small lanes until it was time to take the ferry to Inishmore.

I had to change a broken axle at the bike shop as soon as we arrived, but we quickly made our way to Dun Aengus, or Dun Anus as Sonny and Blue would not stop calling it. Here we found more tourists in horse traps, and as Sonny had just learned to cycle with no hands, we terrorized them by weaving between them at high speeds. After leaning our heads backwards off Dun Aengus, we needed to find somewhere to camp, as the weather had turned foul. We saw a wood behind a house and knocked on the door to ask if we could camp there. I asked in my best Gaeilge, but the lady who answered the door did not understand, I tried again till she reassured me she was Polish and barely even spoke English. Owen cooked the best ever Irish stew, and we drank loads of cups of tea. In the middle of the night we went back up to Dun Aengus and sat around chatting, contemplating our heritage and the trip we had done so far.

‘Ceol agus craic’ on the high seas

A chance encounter with old friends the next day led us to the pub, but we managed to catch the 7 o’ clock boat leaving the island for Rossaveal. An Irish college group were also leaving on the same boat and we had a small céilí on the aft deck while being tossed about by the big swell. Their ‘muinteoir’ wished us luck but warned that there was nothing but bog to camp on north of there. We had a quick talk on the jetty at Rossaveal. Funds, both of energy and money, were running a little lower than expected. It seemed unlikely that Sonny and Blue would be able to spend the month on the road that we had planned. We made a quick decision to high tail it to Malin head as fast as we could.

We took the first road north that we saw, which turned out to be the wrong one, and ended up cycling through miles and miles of bleak but spectacular Connemara bog, before arriving not in Maam Cross as planned, but in Oughterard. As smelly, dirty, wet, uncouth and (in Sonny and Blues case) underage travellers, we were made less than welcome in the local pub – ‘’Ye’re not exactly a good advertisement for Cork people are ye?’’ Saddle sore and weary, we pitched our tents beside the road and swatted off midges until we fell asleep.

By Alex Hart

To be continued...

The opinions of writers featured on SpunOut.ie do not necessarily reflect the views of the SpunOut.ie team or those of Community Creations. We try to give everyone a chance to have their opinions heard but we are not responsible for inaccuracies contained within these.