Tea and Tangerines

A couple of weeks ago, I spent a weekend in Connemara with some friends. Connemara is located on the west coast of Ireland in County Galway, and is known for its sandy beaches, peat bogs, charming villages, and desolate beauty.

We travelled from Cork to Galway city on Friday afternoon. We met up with a friend living in Salthill, which is a few kilometres from the city, where people can walk, run, cycle, and swim. It’s most famous for Blackrock Diving Tower which is a 10ft diving platform overlooking the bay.

Afterwards, we walked to the city centre and got some late dinner at Woozza. We then drove to our friends aunts house outside the city where we would be spending the first night.

On Saturday we drove to Cong, which is a village on the border of counties Mayo and Galway. It is quite a small village but is famous for being the location of the film “The Quiet Man”. It also has a spectacular woods that is the highlight of the area.

Within the woods you can find “Pigeon Hole Cave” which is a limestone cavern with a small stream inside it. There are some steep steps to get down, but it is very interesting to take a look.

After spending the morning in Cong, we drove out to Lough na Fooey Lake, where we spent some time on a beautiful sandy beach with a backdrop of the Partry and Maumturk mountains.

A couple of kilometres down the road is the Lough na Fooey Waterfall, which we were eager to find. The location of the waterfall is not obvious and the only way we could find it was by following the sound. We had to scramble down the side of a valley covered in scrub, and had almost turned back were it not for finding some people climbing back up where we came down.

It was well worth the trek down and we were rewarded with having the whole place to ourselves! We decided we had to have a dip-the weather was fantastic and it was so secluded.

It was my first time going for a swim in a waterfall and it was absolutely spectacular. The water was quite cold because it’s in a valley and the water is always flowing, but don’t let that deter you from such an incredible experience!

The last stop for the evening was Glassilaun Beach where we would be camping for the night. It’s a stunning white sandy beach located between Renvyle and Killary bay with a scenic backdrop of the mountains.

Although technically you are not permitted to camp on the beach, we decided to take a risk and pitch our tents. There were hardly any people on the beach and we took our tents down relatively early in the morning so we never encountered any problems.

The sunset as we were eating our dinner on the beach that night was spectacular, and the perfect ending to our second day.

On Sunday morning, we took down our tents, had some breakfast and put our camping gear back in the car.

We then took some time to explore the rock pools on the other side of the beach. There is a scuba diving centre nearby where you can go on tours, but we didn’t go this time as we didn’t have much time. However, there is still amazing diversity in the rock pools – we found crabs, shrimp, starfish, and various fish.

Around midday we decided to leave and pick up some food for lunch and head to Kylemore Abbey for a picnic. We didn’t go on a tour around the grounds and the abbey because we felt that we would need a whole day to fit it all in. Nevertheless, it was still nice to be able to see it, and the weather was fantastic so it was great to just sit outside for a while.

The next stop of the day was Omey Island, which is an island you can walk or drive to at low tide. Luckily, we had the time to walk to the island and back just before the tide came up. Unfortunately though we didn’t have enough time to explore the island once we got there. However, the beach on the mainland is quite nice for a stroll, with soft white sand and turquoise water.

The next stop of the day was to visit “Pine Island” located on Lough Derryclare. It’s called Pine Island due to the abundance of Scots Pine trees that grow there. This island has to be one of the most photographed locations in Island – and for good reason! The lush island sits on a tranquil lake against a backdrop of the Twelve Bens mountains.

There is a rocky path you can walk on to get to the Island, and it’s a perfect location for a swim. Even though the weather was probably the best we had all year, it still wasn’t too busy. I would highly recommend visiting this spot if you have the time.

The final leg of our trip led us back to Galway city for some dinner. We were back very late so there were very few restaurants open when we got to Galway. However, we found an Indian restaurant that was open late and almost had the place to ourselves. It was the perfect ending to our weekend. Next time, I would prefer to stay a bit longer, but I felt we still did a lot in quite a short space of time. I would recommend staying a bit longer than I did if you have the time as there are so many more beautiful places to visit in the area.