Wednesday 27th May
I woke up to the pattering of tiny bird feet on the van
roof. They sounded like a robin or maybe
a bit bigger, but I guess it was a
seagull tiptoeing so as not to wake me up 🤣
We gave Rio a run on the beach then set off in search of
fuel, it wasn’t desperate but Richard likes to be safe rather than sorry.
It cost us £1.72 a litre.
It was mainly a driving day with admiring the scenery from
inside the van.
We were fascinated by the thousands of rocks and boulders
scattered everywhere, so, of course, I asked Jem who told me that around 20,000
years ago, Ireland was buried under a massive sheet of ice. As these
slow-moving glaciers ground across the landscape, they acted like giant
conveyor belts. They tore huge chunks of bedrock right out of the mountains and
carried them along for the ride. When
the climate warmed up and the ice sheet melted away (around 12,000 to 15,000
years ago), it simply dropped whatever it was holding. The ice vanished,
leaving these massive boulders stranded precisely where they sat when the
melting stopped.
He also said that they look like they were dropped out of
the sky by a giant, which is why local folklore often attributed them to
mythical figures throwing rocks across the landscape.
We found a motorhome service point in a little village in
the middle of nowhere! We were able to
dump grey water and toilet for free, and then we paid €5 for fresh water. We
filled Kiwi and then gave her sides a wash as she was filthy. A well spent €5
and it was done on an honesty basis, cash or QR code. We were still struggling to dump rubbish
though. There are plenty of recycling bins but no rubbish bins. We knew that
this is a problem in Ireland and wondered if there would be a littering problem
but everywhere seems spotless.
Our stop for the night was Coral Strand which is a unique
and world renowned beach. The sand is made up of rare coraline algae known as
maerl which gives it a distinct crunch and striking white appearance.
We took Rio onto the beach and it certainly
did crunch!
There were people swimming
(8.30pm) so I went in for a paddle and was surprised as to how warm it was.
However, in bare feet, the sand was very sharp and painful.
We had tried to sit out during the afternoon but, with no
shade, it was too hot. It was certainly our hottest day.
A few random photos today!
The weather had deteriorated overnight and was grey, chilly
and drizzling. However, it did improve as the day went on.
We were going “off piste” for a couple of days hoping to
catch up with some friends.
Our first stop was Tra na Ceann beach only we ended up
somewhere completely different! A rather
grotty and stinky place which we left pretty quickly!
The City of Galway was next.
Approaching it from the west you drive along the 1.25 mile Salthill
Promenade, a rather attractive place to take a stroll, only it was really busy
and every lamp post had a “no motorhome” sign on it.
Rio's cousin!
Next stop was Tesco which, when we got there, didn’t have
the parking it looked as if it had on Google Maps. At this point we were in the middle of the
city with no destination! I managed to
negotiate our way out, but ended up at the northwest end when we really wanted
to be southeast end! I couldn’t take my
eyes off the map so couldn’t set a new destination until we managed to find
somewhere to stop.
So, three things that went wrong - hopefully things would
get better!
We wanted to get on the M6 out of Galway and I managed to
find a Tesco which was close to the motorway, things were looking up! Jem had told me that I couldn’t use my UK
Tesco Clubcard in Ireland but he was wrong and I made in £20.19 on promotions 😃
We needed LPG and, believe it or not, there was a place 10
minutes away
🤩
We left Galway behind, a city that doesn’t like motorhomes
and also doesn’t let dogs on its public transport, even in a pet carrier.
We drove to Portumna where there is a motorhome aire - it
was rammed and all the vans were parked really close together. Our luck had changed again.
We then drove in to Shannonbridge where there is a stop over
right beside the River Shannon. It was
much nicer and free! Had our luck
changed again?
The What3words for Thursday were
Friday 29th May
It was a bit grey and windy when we woke up but it turned
into a beautiful day. We had decided not
to move on today so had a quiet morning.
After lunch we went for a walk through the town. There was very little there except for a
couple of bars and a small grocery shop.
Shannonbridge is dominated by its beautiful bridge, so we walked over it to a little cafe and partook of tea and cake.
Back at Kiwi we got the chairs out and sat on the quay in
the lovely sunshine. There was quite a
bit of boat movement on the river, these were mostly hire boats.
A few metres from the motorhomes was Luker’s Bar so we took
ourselves off for a meal and a very good meal it was too. Back at Kiwi it was a
lovely evening so we sat out until it became too chilly.
The bridge is one of the oldest stone bridges still carrying
live traffic over the River Shannon. It was completed around 1757 and predates
many of the other major crossings on the Shannon. It features sixteen
stone arches and was built with heavy upstream and downstream triangular
cutwaters - on road level, these double as pedestrian refuges as there is no
pavement. About 80 years after the main
stone bridge was finished, a twin-leaf cast-iron swivel bridge was installed to
let tall-masted steamers pass. In 1983 a new concrete span was added in
its place to replace a couple of the original stone arches, allowing wider
clearance for river navigation and larger cruisers. The swivel bridge is
now mounted on plinths which we can see from Kiwi.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the British feared that French
forces would land on the wild west coast of Ireland, rally the local
population, and march on Dublin. To secure the river line, they heavily
fortified three key crossings: Athlone, Banagher, and Shannonbridge. A massive, two-story bomb-proof stone
barracks was built to house soldiers and heavy artillery. A defensive
drawbridge kept the fort secure from landward attacks. However, because Napoleon was ultimately
defeated at Waterloo in 1815, the fort never saw a single day of active combat,
leaving it perfectly preserved for over two centuries. Today the fort has been converted into a cafe
and a living museum dedicated to preserving local history.
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