The day started with high hopes and a break in the clouds. Heading back to the mainland the skies actually shone through with a little blue. After a real soaker yesterday, I was ready for the sun.
The territory north of Rossaveal is bog land. The ample rain provides lakes and streams, seemingly at every turn.
They are more black than blue and the streams foam a cappuccino froth color.
The earth is so rich with nutrients that when cut it is coal black.
Local bog cutters stripe the land with gouges into the thick rich layers. Once the peat is cut from the ground it is stacked for drying.
Once dehydrated, teams of men throw the chunks into a tractor bed.
Since peat is a source of fuel it is not surprising that the dried vegetation layer feels an awful lot like very light wood. Foot long sections weigh less than a pound each. In the last one hundred years the combination of overgrazing by livestock and harvesting have reduced the producing peat bog area to only 40% of the original acreage.
Peat is not a renewable resource, as it takes tens of thousands of years to build. The original organic material was from pine and deciduous forests combined with ground cover. The forests have long been harvested to extinction and the remaining ferns and grasses protect the underlying peat. What creates the burnable fuel, counter intuitively, is water. The heavy rains keep the soil and composite organic material moist, which retards decomposition. So the generational layers of plant matter pile one on top of the other, creating weight to compress and pack the lower level organics into a waiting fuel source.
The remaining threats to the existing bog ecosystems are obviously harvesting and not so obviously grazing. When farm animals eat the final cover layer of vegetation, then the soil is vulnerable to evaporation and with that organic decomposition begins.
Enough with the bog facts, Clifden was the first town across the miles of narrow country road. The directional signage in Ireland is minimally instructive at best and mostly obscured by a visual labyrinth of Bed & Breakfast and Restaurant signs crowding out the one needed direction sign. The other challenge in driving in Ireland is that every road is a paved horse path, so the size of the surface has relatively no bearing as to its importance. You could just as easily be on a recognized road as on an extended side road to nowhere. In my case, nowhere was the harbor entrance for Clifden and an eventual dead end into the lifeboat station.
Actually, there were no complaints from me. I was almost literally dead tired, so pulled into the five-space gravel car park and was asleep in almost moments. Two and a half hours later and I awoke to a hallucinating reality. I literally had no idea where I could be and was searching the car for someone. Youth Hostel sleep deprivation, combined with jet lag, dehydration, and a now unbelievably hot car had all combined to create my disturbing awakening. The good news was that the sun was shining brightly and once the seal of the car was broken my head began to clear.
So, I headed to Connemara National Park and what appears to be the highest hill/mountain in the area at a whopping 721 meters.
Longing for a good stretch of the legs Benbough was actually a reasonable challenge. The climb itself was little more than a simple “walk up” but the wind was the strongest I’ve ever experienced.
The gusts were literally strong enough to change the course of individual strides. Clothes were plastered to windward and luffing loudly to leeward. At one point I simply leaned forward into the wind and it held me in place. Working my way around the mountain, with the wind now to my back, it literally blew me uphill. Crazy…
A couple of nice surprises along the national park trails were a colt and mare from the prized Connemara herd...
... and this cute little guy (by the Visitors Center) who thought it was just about the perfect time to stop and play with stones instead of trudging on.
Just as I was getting ready to head to the car park, the skies cleared just enough for a clear view of the summit.
The stretch home brought me by the beautiful Kylemore lakeside Abbey. Ireland is great for surprises this way, as a beautiful lake or building may be hiding around almost any curve.
The clouds regained their strength and thickened on the winding path back to Galway.
Still lacking enough sleep reserves the hostel was a welcome site.
My continuing challenge is that “it is August in Europe” and that means hoards of partying vacationers. I slept great from one to three-thirty in the morning and then the revelers starting making their uncoordinated, boisterous, bunk bed rattling, staggered migration back to the dorm room.
Once settled into bed the chorus of wheezing nicotine saturated snoring insured that restful sleep was now finished for the night.
