Ireland – The End

Today is our last day in Ireland.  Tomorrow morning, at some horribly early hour, we head for the Shannon airport and fly home.

We packed up this morning, had our last breakfast at Hillcrest House (I am truly going to miss Maureen’s soups.  They are to die for.), loaded the van and headed out for one last day of shooting before finishing in Ennis for the night.

Boats in the harbor at Kinvarra

Our first stop was the small village of Kinvarra, near the eastern shore of Galway Bay.  Kinvarra is a typical, west Irish village with a small harbor of brightly colored boats and the usual, brightly painted storefronts.  It turned out that there is a farmer’s market on Fridays, with live music and lots of the usual food stuffs.  One booth had wonderful, soft pretzels.  I bought a couple to enjoy, but Susan stole at least half.  I should have bought the whole lot.

The Burren

Leaving Kinvarra, we drove west into the Burren region.  This is a region along the southern coast of Galway Bay that is made up of flat, limestone rocks, with lots of surf and cliffs.  The Cliffs of Mohar are in this area, although we did not go that far.

Our first stop was The Monk restaurant in Ballyvaghan.  We had wonderful Galway Bay oysters, mussels and a really good fish chowder.  A great meal for our last lunch in Ireland.

After lunch, we worked our way along the coast road, photographing as we found turnoffs and surf action.  Of course, we had to deal with a few issues on the road:

An Irish Roadblock

Surf against the cliffs at Fanore

Done photographing the Burren, we turned inland and drove to Ennis.  After checking into our hotel and doing some last minute shopping, we had our final dinner with Olcan, Herb and Cathy, said our final goodbyes and now I sit here doing my last blog post from Ireland.

The trip was wonderful and I want to thank Strabo Tours for putting together a great experience.  Olcan was a fabulous tour leader, full of music, stories, culture and history, who both entertained us and got us to the best photo sites in  County Mayo.

And so, finally, an Irish farewell…

The End

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