By the end of the day, I think that I heard “Dennis is in Ennis” a few too many times … but after all, I was in Ennis.
We got a reasonably early start to the morning. Rather than go back and do more hiking at Annascual Lake (we found out that there was a waterfall there that we had missed), we’d instead aim for the Cliffs of Mohr, west of Ennis and south of Galway.
Our good luck with weather was holding … a bit of overnight rain and early morning fog quickly faded, and the roads were great for driving. Our third day on the road was certainly the longest, but also the easiest of the driving. The combination of better roads and more confidence made all of the difference. Every time I’d pull onto the road though, I’d still repeat my “drive on the left … stay close to the center line” mantra just to keep myself sharp.
Like yesterday, big chunks of our map would seem to fly by. Places that looked like big cities on the map would end up being hamlets with only a few houses, and even the real cities were quite small. Our first real destination for the day was Tarbert, where we could catch a ferry across the Shannon, saving ourselves an hour or two of driving. Things were looking up for us, as we caught the ferry perfectly, and were quickly on the road again.
Back on dry land, we encountered a fairly large bike race. Not a great thing to see on the narrow roads, but fortunately they were going south and we were going north … no problem for us, but a serious problem for anybody trying to drive the other way. Kept me on my toes though just the same. Hitting some Swiss guy on a Harley would have been pretty bad, but I would have gotten over it soon enough — hitting an Irish guy on a road bike would have been terrible.
We made our way out to the coast, to a place called Kilkee … it was our first real glimpse of the very rugged cliffs along the west coast, and the open Atlantic. We continued north to Lahinch, apparently one of the best spots to surf on the west coast. As Michele slept off the stress of being a passenger on my left-side expedition, I headed down to the beach. There had to of been close to 100 wannabe surfers in the water, splashing about in two foot waves. Not exactly overwhelming, but, good to see nonetheless. Another few minutes up the road, and we were at the famous Cliffs of Mohr. It had all the signs of North American tourism gone wrong — beautiful natural scenery, heavy construction, piles of tour buses, and pay parking. The natural scenery was really quite amazing, but, the sheer volume (number and sound) of tourists there was a real turn-off. One of the big things to do at the cliffs has traditionally been to watch a wise-guy walk out to the very edge (of this several hundred foot drop) and ham it up for the camera. Seems that enough people have done this to make the edge of the cliffs very unstable and prone to erosion. Walls have been erected to keep people away — we saw two yanks (as the Irish love to call them), one wearing a Wisconsin Badgers hat, climbing the wall to do his thing. Further ahead, hundreds more were walking past the no trespassing sign and hopping over a damaged fence to head out into more forbidden territory. Couldn’t get out of the place fast enough.
Only a 45-minute drive to go into Ennis (remember … Dennis in Ennis), and we’d be safe and sound. It almost seemed a shame to be driving on such smooth, wide roads now that my skill level was so high … but we did it anyway. One of my Mom’s first cousins, Nora, lives in Ennis. We had struggled with Irish payphones during our entire visit, and hadn’t been able to get in touch with Nora to a) let her know that we were coming, or b) get directions. Figuring our safest bet was to get into the city center, that’s right where we went. Michele captured some video (below) as we drove through the tiny heart of the city – it was actually kind of fun.
A few successful phone calls made up for some very unsuccessful attempts to find Nora and her family … but eventually we found them, and they were quick to offer us a drink, to feed us, and to welcome us into their home. They even said “welcome home” to us … I had never considered Ireland to be home before, but, the hospitality of these relatives that I previously knew nothing about is making me reconsider. Dennis was in Ennis, and since Ennis is in Ireland, Dennis was home.
