We left Belfast after a wonderful time with Gav and Karen slightly a little worse for wear but excited for the next part of our trip. We had a few days up our sleeve before we were due in Cork for our next visit of friends so thought we would take a road trip down the west coast stopping in a few spots along the way. After getting great tips from Gavin and Karen we decided to head towards Westport. The initial part of the trip wasn’t anything to write home about as we were just passing through the middle part of Northern Ireland and into the Republic of Ireland.
It must be said that once we the hit the Republic of Ireland countryside we were expecting similar architecture to that of England, ie old stone houses but everything seemed new. The houses were predominately rendered and some with a stone feature wall but they didn’t look old. I don’t know if things had been renovated or the population has grown so much over the years that new houses were built but it was just different to what we were expecting. Also most of the houses were all detached with each having their own little bit of land.
As we continued on towards the coast we knew we were not going to make it all the way to Westport so found a campsite just south of Sligo. We were the only ones there but it was beautiful with views over Lake Arrow. We had an early night and then headed off again the next day.
Pretty much from the campsite the countryside got a lot prettier and turned from green farmland into treeless heather bogs and then we hit the coast and it was spectacular. The road we were travelling was called the wild Atlantic way and that would definitely be a word I would use to describe it. Wild. Rolling hills into dramatic cliff drops into the Atlantic Ocean. We also had narrow peninsulas that we would wind around with the sea almost a lake.
We took a very big detour and headed over to Achill Island which was different again. Most of the houses were white with black roofs and cast against a backdrop of fiery reds and vivid greens it was a spectacular sight. If I lived there I think I would be inclined to paint landscapes but I think it would take you years to work out the correct colour combinations only to look out the window and have the sun strike a spot which would change the colour once again.
Unfortunately the weather was pretty awful so our walks were short but they broke up the drive and by the time we arrived in Westport we had pretty much spent the whole day travelling about 120kms if we had have taken the direct route. When we drove into the campsite and saw the front gate padlocked we realised it was closed for the season and without any other campsites around we jumped onto Booking.com and found ourselves a fabulous hotel right in the middle of town.
This was a godsend really as the weather was awful and we would have had to walk about 2kms into town if we were staying at the campsite. We had been told by Gavin and Karen about a fantastic pub that played Irish music every night of the week and definitely wanted to do that but I just happened to google pubs near me and would have had 20 pop up in a 200m vicinity! The Irish certainly know how to drink and have a good time.
After a nice pub dinner we headed over to Gavin and Karen’s recommended pub Matt Molloys and had a great Guinness while admiring all the pictures on the wall. The music wasn’t starting until 9.30pm so we thought we would do a bit of a pub crawl before then so headed to the next pub (literally the next door over) and managed to score a great table right where their musicians were going to be playing. We ended up staying there all night listening to a wonderful trio who played a mix of traditional Irish folk songs but also a few newbies as well, they were so much fun. One guy was on an accordion one on a guitar and the other on a banjo. They definitely were masters of their craft and I must admit I have never heard an accordion being played so diversely.
The Westport pub experience was definitely one we will mark down as a highlight and the only downside was that we were only staying one night before moving on. S