Dublin Day 3: Gimme Moher

For my third day in Dublin, I decided to leave the city entirely. I booked an all day trip out to the west coast to see the Cliffs of Moher, or as you may know them The Cliffs of Insanity from The Princess Bride and also appearing in that one Harry Potter movie where he and Dumbledore take a rowboat into a cave and there’s all those skeletons or goblins or whatever in the water and the thing that Dumbledore drinks is poison or something. We all on the same page now? Great. Cool. Onwards and Upwards.

I was fairly excited about this outing. The cliffs looked majestic as fuck and there was going to be little pit stops at two castles. Party. It was also going to be the first time I ever went on a group tour somewhere, not counting class trips to Chicago and NYC back in high school or that time my grandma and I went to Oglebay, West Virgina to see the Christmas light displays (she hated being on a bus full of old women more than I did). I like to explore and see things on my own time so I was hesitant about the experience but put aside my worries and rolled with it.

The first sign I got about how the day was going to be happened the night before when I spotted one of the tour buses on the street: a bright green coach bus with a leprechaun and the word PADDYWAGON painted on the side. For someone that likes to be as lowkey as possible when traveling, that was a bit of a stomach dropper. But I accepted it, it was a tour bus after all. They’re going to be obnoxious.

My second sign was about 20 minutes before we left. As I left my room that morning I thought to myself “Oh you should grab that second battery for your camera.” But I figured I’d be fine because the one I just put in had been charging all day the day before. Cut to me standing by the Molly Malone statue, at 7:30am waiting for the bus when I decide to pull my camera out and discover that the battery did in fact NOT charge and was half dead. Cue the stomach drop. Granted, I had 3 other cameras on me: A Polaroid with 2 shots left on it, a Holga film camera, and my 35mm film camera. It was a real panic induced “Going to have to make this work” moment.

The bus was packed full and I was the only one traveling alone which may or may not have contributed to there not being enough seats and a woman’s husband having to sit on the floor next to the driver. I’m 98% sure that’s one hell of a safety violation. The guide was a nice fellow. Picture that guy from that episode of Friends where Phoebe is ringing the bell for charity and that guy takes money out of the bucket to make change for the bus. So him, but with an Irish accent. He was a bit of a chatter, but he was a tour guide after all. I just think that you don’t need to carry on for 20 minutes shouting out “Where’s everyone from!?” then giving anecdotes about every location that was mentioned. It reminded me of a terrible standup set I saw once where the guys main point was that he was looking for a new career so he was asking the audience for suggestions and every time his repsone was “yeah that’s good but I don’t think that’s for me.” That’s even how he responded to an audience member shouting “comedian!” The guide eventually asked if there were any Brits on board (there weren’t) then rambled on about how it’s not true that the Irish really hate the Brits “ok maybe a bit but not a lot” and then began talking about Brexit and that these exact days were going to be the ones that history would talk about. I eventually put on my headphones listen to the new Jenny Lewis album and try to drown out the traditional Irish music that began playing. No offense Ireland but I’m good on that.

Jenny Lewis - On the Line. May I suggest “Dogwood” for a good cry.

Two hours into the 4 hour drive, we stopped at the Barack Obama Plaza. Yes, that’s right. A rest stop named after the former president that is situated outside his ancestral village and features a lovely sculpture of him and Michelle out front. I wanted to go through the Obama exhibit they had on the second level but I was on a time limit and needed to be properly caffeinated before I could continue on. I wouldn’t say a rest stop dedicated to Obama was exactly the last thing I’d expect to see in Ireland but it definitely wasn’t at the top of my things to expect.

Second stop was Bunratty castle. Built in 1425, the castle is actually part of a tourist attraction featuring a folk village. But we didn’t get the time to explore as it was simply a 15 minute photo stop. I’ll be honest and say I was a bit disappointed by the castle but that’s mostly my own doing. In my mind, when I hear castle there’s only two kinds: crazy big, majestic sons of bitches or really cool ruins. So when I saw Bunratty, which was simply a large tower I was like “oh.. huh. Okay..” Looking back at it now though, it’s actually pretty cool. I mean, it predates Columbus landing in the Caribbean by almost 50 years and the settlement of Jamestown by almost 200. It’s a shame I didn’t get a chance to see more of it, maybe I would have appreciated it more in the moment rather than a week later.

After Bunratty, we headed out for the Cliffs. It was at this point that I began to think that maybe a large coach bus wasn’t exactly the best way to get there. You go through many small villages and most of the roads leading to it are country roads. Neither one were built to accommodate something this large. The guide made multiple comments about how every driver but him had hit something during one precarious left turn in the middle of a village onto a one lane bridge. Then as we approached the cliffs, rather than giving any great information about them, he decided to talk about the golf course we passed and how everyone was excited about a major tournament that was about to be hosted there. I think I learned more about the history of that course than I did the cliffs or any of the other stops. I’m sure it's a very nice course, it looked that way, but this wasn’t what I signed up for. Fun fact: when I was writing out this post the other day, it took me a good minute to remember that it’s called a golf course and not a golf court or field. The views as you approached the cliffs were gorgeous and you couldn’t even see the cliffs yet. It was all bright green, rolling hills, beautiful houses… a golf course. I told myself not to take any pictures during the drive so as to save the battery for the cliffs but I couldn’t resist.

You can see the majestic golf course in the foreground.

Our tour really lucked out with the weather. The one thing the guide did say about the Cliffs was that the day before he was there and you couldn’t see anything because of the fog. We had exactly 90 minutes to explore the cliffs, which was a bit of a bummer. What was not a bummer was the fact that there was a welcome center with a bathroom. There are two paths along the cliffs, one to the cliffs that’s open and you’re able to walk up as close to the edge as you want and wide open fields to the other side. The one to the right actually has two paths, one along the edge that’s raised up by about two feet and a safer ground level one that runs right next to the raised path. The fields along this path are fenced off leaving you to stick to the path. I ended up on the latter, thinking it offered better views and less people. There were multiple points along the trail that let you go down onto little outcroppings. I did one of them and immediately got extreme anxiety. Since the weather was shit the day before and all these trail are dirt, it was quite muddy. One slip going down on these outcroppings and I could have fallen 900 feet. Of course I was totally fine and just overreacting (a common theme for this day) but it’s still a very real, terrifying threat. I couldn’t bring myself to look at anyone getting close to the edge to take selfies. I would turn and brace for the sound of someone falling over the edge. I ended up having to stare at the ground as I walked along the trail muttering to myself “you’re okay you’re okay you’re okay.” Heights are fun.

About 30 minutes into my time at the cliffs, the coolest thing happened. My camera battery died. I already used the 2 Polaroids. I finished the roll in the 35mm and the roll wasn’t rewinding. And I didn’t have a extra roll for the Holga. I became so frustrated and angry at myself for not listening to my gut when I left I actually cried for a bit. I hoping anyone that may have seen me crying on a cliff just assumed it was because of the overwhelming beauty of everything and nothing darker or as pointless as it actually was. After a good fifteen minutes of standing around frustrated and moping, I took the battery out for a few seconds then popped it back in. Just like that, it came back to life. I’m still so angry I stood around for so long and didn’t at least keep walking, instead just wasted time being angry and letting that ruin my ability to think straight. I immediately began shooting as fast as I can to get what I could before it would die again. By that point though, I had to start heading back for the bus. Hopefully, I’m able to head back to the Cliffs one day with more time and a fully charged battery.

One of the only times I took a panorama that wasn’t all glitchy looking.

After the cliffs, we headed to a small village for a cafeteria style lunch, which I decided to pass on. I actually stood in line for it twice but left both times because nothing looked appealing to me. I knew we were stopping at another rest stop later so I said fuck it, I’ll get myself something there then treat myself to a good dinner rather than spending 20 Euro on beef stew. Following lunch, we drove through what is known as the Burren and stopped for a 15 minute photo stop at the “baby cliffs.” This was another time when I wish I had more time. The landscape was fascinating, almost alien, and there’s so much more to see than the tiny bit we stopped at (at least according to the Burren’s Wikipedia page). I actually learned more from Derek than I did from the tour guide, who told use basically nothing. 70% of the country’s flowers are found there, some of which are only found in that area and over a dozen different kinds of orchids. I was totally in love with this area. I could have spent more time here than at Moher quite honestly. It was just so fascinating and vast. It actually put me in a good mood for the rest of the trip. I forgot about all the frustrations from earlier.

Once we all boarded the bus, we headed up along the Wild Atlantic Way, Ireland’s answer to the Pacific Coast Highway with more ruins, cows, and tiny villages. Again, a rather small road full of curves that definitely isn’t suited for a coach bus. We even had to pull over at one point to make room for a herd of cattle coming down the road. It’s hard to accurately describe what I was seeing. It actually left me quite speechless. I couldn’t stop taking photos, except when I had to take out the battery every couple of minutes and pop it back in. Judging by his passive aggressive coughing, I’m sure my seat mate was none to happy about me hogging the window the entire but it’s not my fault he didn’t show up early enough to get a window seat on the left side of the bus. Maybe next time buddy. Is it weird that now that I think about it, if I get to choose my seat, I always choose to sit on the left side of whatever I’m traveling in? The seat I picked for the ride up to Dublin was on the left side but since I didn’t get my seat I sat on the right and it felt a little weird. But I was sitting backwards so it’s like I was on the left side. Anyways, that couldn’t be more of a pointless tangent. At the end of the Atlantic Way, we stopped off at Dunguaire castle, which I found to be a far more instantly intriguing castle than the last one. But again… I had 10 minutes for it. From there we headed back to the city. I picked up a sandwich, the guide changed to music to gentle top 40, my seat mate continued to cough passive aggressively every time I turned towards the window, and the German youths in front of me sang along to “I Want It That Way.” One of whom whipped out a rather large carrot and just started munching away at one point in the trip by the way.

I could regale you with the details of the rest of my night and how I wandered around Dublin at night looking for some place to eat, occasionally crying because again, I was frustrated and angry that places close at 10pm until I stumbled upon a restaurant and gorged myself on cheap merlot and Korean steamed buns but that’s another one that deserves to excite in person. Instead, I’ll leave you with this: if you like to wander around and explore on your own with no time limits, don’t book a group trip. While I’m glad I got to see what I did and it overall wasn’t the worst, I was disappointed by the constraints that were in place. I wanted more than 10 minutes to explore the Burren and technically only 45 (45 minute walk out is a 45 minute walk back) to see the Cliffs. I would have rather skipped the castles if it meant more time at those places. Are there group tours where they drive you out, don’t talk to you, drop you off, and pick you back up 4 hours later a thing? I guess that’s just public transit huh? Hm. Noted.