The Journey to Ireland
Rather than tell the entire Ireland story in one go, I'm going to break it up into several smaller posts – otherwise it could stretch on for several thousand (very boring) words that nobody except myself might be remotely interested in reading.
The adventure began on a Friday morning two weeks ago.After filling the car with all manner of clothes, coats, boots, and who knows what else, we set off for North Wales full of enthusiasm, and excitement – a break from the mayhem that had surrounded us for the last few months.
The excitement pretty much got burned to the ground after several hours crawling through roadworks and traffic jams en route to Holyhead on the tip of Anglesea, North Wales. After an epic eight hour nightmare, we arrivedthreehours later than planned, and checked into a bed and breakfast for the night. My other half had serious misgivings about the hotel, after daring to look at reviews on the internet. Rule Number One – never take any notice of review websites, because people who have had a good experience rarely review anything. Bitter people with grudges will expend endless energy seeking attention to tell their story. The hotel was wonderful. Yes, it was small, and the building was old, but it was spotlessly clean, the proprietor couldn't do enough for us. The beds were comfortable, and breakfast the next morning was wonderful. We'll be writing some reviews of our own.
Bright and early the next morning we made our way to the ferry port, and boarded the Stena service to Dublin, Ireland. It was my first experience of a big ferry, so I was as excited as the children as we explored the boat for the first hour. The next two hours were a bit more of a drag, but before we knew it the coast of Ireland appeared out of the mist, and the port of Dublin beckoned. We waved to yachts as we entered the breakwater, and then followed instructions to re-join our car deep in the bowels of the ship.
More by luck than judgement we joined the toll road out of Dublin – several miles of tunnel that avoided perhaps an hour of inner city traffic. We burst out into clear sunshine, perfect roads, and very little traffic – something that would continue to surprise us over the coming weeks all over Ireland.
Life immediately slowed down. We also had no mobile phone signals (another story for another time).
We traveled west across Ireland, heading for County Clare, and our eventual destination – a remotecottage on the Loophead peninsula. Along the way we listened to Irish radio stations, stopped at a service stationfilled with Irish newspapers, and strangely labelled food, and marvelled at the vast swathes of green stretching in all directions.
The final 10 miles of the journey took us onto minor roads, and instructions such as “carry on for a mile, you will see a church – turn left. After another mile you will cross a hump-back bridge, and come to a fork – turn left – then continue for another mile before taking the next right”. You see – there are no signs on minor roads in Ireland. Unless you know where you're going, or you have GPS, you've pretty much had it.
We followed the instructions blindly, and eventually arrived at the cottage we recognised from nearly a year ago when we were invited to the wedding. It was stunning, and provided the best base we could have hoped for in the weeks ahead.