We arose with slightly fuzzy heads from a great night full of Guinness and great music and so after our full Irish Breakfast we headed off on our way and began with a walk along a beach to clear the heads and freshen up. The weather was dry and not too windy so I guess it was good and our plan for the day was to drive around the west coast between Westport and Galway and take in the sights.
Pretty much from the get go we were witnessing beautiful scenery unfolding before us and while the roads were narrow and windy we were still able to find spots where we could stop and take pictures and enjoy the scenery but I will have to admit that most of the time we couldn’t stop and so those views will forever be in our memories.
I have to admit that the first part of our drive through Ireland was nice but not necessarily awe inspiring and we were wondering a little what everyone was so impressed with. Yet this part of the country was truly something we hadn’t seen much of before and the feeling of being somewhere quite remote certainly helped with the experience. I wonder if it helped being slightly out of season and therefore tourist numbers were down.
Our drive ended up taking us nearly all day even though we hadn’t actually travelled that far. We decided to stop short of Galway and try and find somewhere to stay. We had started to find that a lot of the campsites around Ireland actually shut down at the end of September. It’s funny because while I can see that camping in a tent would be pretty unpleasant it’s actually quite cosy in the van especially with the diesel heater!
So we weren’t actually convinced that we would find a campsite but we thought we would give it a go and luckily enough we found one that was still open and us along with 4 other vans kept the place in business for the night.
Unfortunately while the campsite was open in this village nothing much else was so we hunkered down for the night and rested up ready to continue our drive of the western coast the next day. T