Tuesday 16th Day 29
What a great night not a sound to be heard but what I have found strange is that since we have been here and no matter where we have parked and we have parked in some really dark sky location with no light pollution, we haven’t seen any stars and I can’t remember seeing the moon either, there must have been total low cloud all of the time, I have been looking forward to taking some magnificent night sky photographs but it hasn’t happed yet. Right on to today, Barbs farmer friend and also Stephen that we met the other day both said that we must visit Slieve Liag which is a mountain not far from where we were and said that when there we should attack the summit as the views are fantastic. This was going to be a tough one as Slieve Liag has the second highest sea cliffs in Ireland, it’s 3 times higher than the cliffs of Moher and is amongst the highest sea cliffs in Europe, wow this is going to be a big one. Off we went and it wasn’t long before we arrived at base camp also known as the visitor centre and cafe, we prepared ourselves and set off straight to camp 4, which wasn’t to strenuous as there was a shuttle bus to take us there. From camp 4 there it was a final push to the summit, Barb decided that she was going to give this one a miss but as I was well prepared with trainers, T shirt, shorts and a fleece jacket, a Berghaus one I will have you know, I was going to go for it, well it was about 200 metres on a purpose made path with steps made out off the rocks that had been lying around and cemented into place which was a good job as the bus was coming back in 40 minutes. They were both correct as the view from the summit was fantastic, with the cliffs dropping 600 metres to the ocean, the surrounding mountains and oh a lot of the ocean stuff, it was well worth risking getting there, but I had to make the descent quickly as the bus was due, the descent is made more difficult than the going up bit as Sir Isaac’s mate Gravity has a say in how quickly you go and this might be quicker than you would like it to be. Exhausted we clime onto the shuttle bus and ready ourselves for the 10 or so minutes to base camp, it’s not long before we realise we have got on the wrong bus as this one is full of tourists who we guessed were on a coach tour, it stopped at various places on the way down while giving us a full tour commentary, oops, how on earth do I come up with this stuff. We had a couple of uneventful stops and we ended at a small harbour stop over that Barb had found only there was a slight problem as there were signs saying no overnight parking, I went for a walk around the small village and found another car park and this had parking bays marked specifically for motorvans which was right opposite a restaurant called the Lobster pot which apparently sold wonderful seafood with lobsters fresh from the tank in the restaurant, but it is one of those restaurants that doesn’t put prices on their menu and this does cheese me off as it could embarrass some customers after they have sat at a table. There is always the saying if you have to ask the price you can’t afford it, that’s crap even the well known chef’s restaurants like Gordon Ramsey at the Savoy hotel publish their prices never mind some restaurant with illusions of grandeur in the back end of nowhere that comprises of a harbour with a ferry, a fish and chip take away that has seating, the no menu fish restaurant, one pub and that’s your lot and only the pub was open. Obviously in an effort to assist the local economy we paid it a visit and the only other person in there was the bar person, a few locals drifted in and sat there making love to their pint of Guinness, check out Billy Joel’s The Piano Man. We went back to Glo who even though we had put at the very top of the ramps was still nowhere near level, what the heck it’s only one night we will survive, I will let you know tomorrow how quiet or even how noisy this stop over was and I wonder what stories I can aggregate then, I guess we will find out.
Stop over car park on a proper slant in Burntonport, County Donegal
WTW smothered.neon.cherishes