I think I have said this a million times already and I wouldn’t mind repeating myself – Ireland is breathtakingly beautiful.
The best views can be seen along the Wild Atlantic Way and there is no mystery as to why they are beautiful. There are a few very famous and touristy places here like Galway, Killarney, Dingle, Cork, Dublin. The Cliffs of Moher is one of the major tourist attractions with over a million visitors per year. If you are lucky, your trip to the cliffs would turn out to be a sunny day on the west coast of Ireland and that would probably be one of the best things that could happen to you.
Having planned and canceled our trip to the cliffs multiple times this year due to weather, going there on a spur of the moment was one of the best decisions we have ever made. On our way to Connemara, we realized that it was going to be a sunny day and just decided to take a detour and drive down to the Cliffs first. It was windy but it was very sunny and I love these occasional tans because they wear off so soon. We walked along the cliffs all the way up till the hog head. Do you see a pillar sort of thing on the last cliff in the photo above? Well, that’s hog head. The walk and the views were amazing. We kept stopping and relaxing for a while to soak in the beauty before continuing further. I have to say – it was one of our best cliff walks in Ireland.
There is a lot of greatness hidden in this world which we often choose not to see. Our travels are always a constant reminder of this. There is a shuttle service every hour from hog head to the main visitor center and back. Without realizing the time, we reached hog head just 5 minutes after the shuttle left and the next one was only after an hour. We were tired and didn’t want to walk the whole route back through the cliffs. The walk through the main road would have also taken an hour at least. We were already a bit late to reach Connemara and didn’t have much choice other than walk through the main road back to the visitor center where our car was parked. At the shuttle service, the lady mentioned that you can always ask for a lift on the way. So, off we went. After about a kilometre, we saw a car approaching. We stopped that car, asked if they could help us by giving us a ride to the visitor center. To our happiness, they agreed. They were a newlywed French couple on their honeymoon and knew very little English. Our communication within those 10 minutes was limited. We had assumed that they were heading the same way and hence they had agreed to give us a ride. We only realized that they came all the way to the visitor center just to drop us when we saw them taking a U-turn after dropping us. They didn’t have to give us a ride. They could have always said – no we are not heading that way, sorry. But they chose to help us. And it was a reminder for us, that the world is full of good people. We just don’t see it that often. Having felt so grateful and indebted to them, we decided to return the favor to others. On our way back, we gave a lift to an Austrian lady who was on her way to a match-making festival and promised to teach us skiing if we go visit her in winters. She gave us her email id and we are now in touch with her. Next winter we are probably going to learn skiing. For the rest of the route till Galway, we helped two young college-going German girls and in return, we got to hear a lot of stories about Germany and their travels to India and other countries.
In all, it was a day well spent at the Cliffs of Moher. And to top it off, it was Raga’s birthday. A very satisfied birthday for that matter.
