Piles of Rocks and the Girls Who Love Them

Start: Strandhill

End: Strandhill

Nope, not just the whiskey.  I am absolutely, 100% in love with this little county.

It is possible I have found a new Thing That is Fun.

We slept in this morning, which was absolutely heavenly, and quite in keeping with my “It’s our holiday and nothing we do can be considered ‘wasting it’!” motto.  The landlady very sweetly kept out breakfast for us, even tho’ we didn’t come down until 1000, and as we ate she recommended a few spots to us for food and relaxation.  She also said that we might want to wait on going up to Knocknarea, since it wasn’t as good when it was cloudy.  As such, we made Carrowmore our first destination.

Carrowmore has a little self-guided tour, so that’s what we did- and were exceptionally grateful for our water-proof shoes, as it involved a lot of trudging through wet fields.  And I will admit that even I, who am ridiculously enthusiastic about ancient ruins, had a bit of a, “Yep, these are a bunch of rocks in a field,” feeling by the end of it… but only a little bit.  And it was tempered by the opportunity to eat wild Irish blackberries, and by seeing traces of rabbits everywhere (I am rereading Watership Down on this trip and am thus even more hyper-bunny-aware than usual).  I posited that the bramble would make a fine home for them, so I kept an eye out amongst the thorns and sure enough- a bunny!  I marveled at how perfectly his coloring camouflaged him- right down to the bright black bead of his eye looking like one of the tall grass seedpods.

“Lots of things please you, Peach,” said Nathan in amused exasperation.  I did not argue.

We made our way back into town to have lunch at the highly-recommended-by-our-hostess Shells, and discovered that the praise is not at all hyperbole.  I had a lamb stew (remembering to take my pills in case of sneaky flour-for-thickening) served in a bowl large enough to float my head.  I could only eat half of it, but the rest made an excellent late-night-snack.  Plus there was pretty hot chocolate, to warm us up after walking around in the chill.

We headed back out into that chill with the express purpose of scaling Knocknarea and marveling at the “pile of rocks” on top.  It was a bit of a rough hike, but not too bad, and the sun made an appearance once we’d ascended, ensuring Nathan some excellent shots.  We made our rock-offerings (you’re supposed to bring new rocks for the cairn of the queen/goddess who is supposedly buried there), and then I found a rock with a sea-fossil, but I did not take it because I had to cling to some shred of my integrity (which was a bit tattered because we did climb the mound in spite of the fact that I’m not totally sure that’s allowed- but I picked up a bunch of litter from up there so surely that offsets some of the bad karma?).

It really was a breathtaking sight, you guys.

After that I stumped my way slowly back down while Nathan took even longer (apparently the light just kept getting better and better), which meant that I passed about half an hour sitting happily in the sun at the bottom, listening to sheep and watching the swallows play.

Swallows really are fantastic from a graphic design standpoint.

Back once more to Strandhill, where I decided to get a little crazy and have a seaweed bath.  It was heavenly.  If heaven is slimy.  Which it may very well be, especially if the angels bring you ice cream, as my husband did (handmade English Toffee!).  My skin is ultra soft now, and so is my hair- plus I’m just relaxed as hell.  No need for whiskey tonight!