It was a dark and stormy night...no wait. It was actually a dark and stormy morning, it just seemed like night because the sun never came out. In any case, imagine a drizzly day in mid-February in New England and you'll have it. We were fed a delicious breakfast with homemade soda bread then, despite the terrible weather, decided to stick to the plan and hike to Doolin. So we pulled our packs onto shoulders aching from the hike the day before, said goodbye to our hostess and headed up the road. The grocery store in Fanore is very small- smaller even than the one in Ballyvaughan. But we found a couple of fresh scones and some cheddar cheese and figured that would do for lunch. We didn't expect to be on the road very long, see. Oh, if we had only known.
We got some directions from one of the locals and set off down the road. At first all was well and good. It was chilly and a little damp, but not too bad, and the Irish country side really is a beautiful thing to behold. But after about 30 minutes of walking we crested a hill and found ourselves buffeted by 21mph winds. Oof! It was enough to almost knock you off your feet! We were optimistic- surely we would go down into a valley soon and get out of the punishing wind. Nope. The only break we had from the wind that afternoon was the two times we were able to find bushes that were tall enough and facing the right direction to serve as a windbreak while we rested. For several hours we struggled, us against the wind, uphill and down. It began to rain, and the rain felt like needles against our faces. We cursed our stupidity at coming to this godforsaken land where it was 17 degrees Celsius in the middle of the summer and fantasized about a hot shower. We vowed never to stray from our beloved San Diego again and moaned about how much the distant cliffs looked like the ones in La Jolla. Mostly we just marched on in grim silence, taking turns walking in front of each other to provide a windbreak for the person behind. There are not a whole lot of pictures from this leg because it was too wet and cold and rainy and windy to pull the camera out. Besides, the last thing you really want to do when you are that miserable is take pictures to remind yourself later of how it was.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, we arrived at our hostel in Doolin. We opened the door and found ourselves in what looked like a cozy living room, complete with a wood burning stove. I could have kissed the doorstep the warmth felt so good! The other hostel guests inside directed us next door to check in- only problem: the proprietors of the establishment were gone who knows where for some indeterminate period of time. After some debate, a walk down to the village to see what there was to eat (not much), and some crying (mostly by me) we decided to just make ourselves comfy in the hostel lounge, on the assumption that if we had been able to check in that's what we'd be doing anyway. It's good we decided not to wait out in the rain because the owners did not show up for another two hours! But after we were checked in the man in charge offered to drive us to the local grocery store, which was good because otherwise it was going to be leftover scones and some peanuts for dinner. This action on his part most likely saved Alan's life- I get a mite cranky when I don't get dinner.
The following day we did pretty much nothing- laundry, read some, poked around in little shops, bought some fudge with chili in it (yum!). It was good, we needed the rest. And the weather was pretty horrible anyway, so we were glad we hadn't planned more hiking. The hostel itself was super nice- it had a huge, sunny kitchen with three separate stoves so lots of people could be cooking at one time. The living room space, as I've already mentioned, was comfy, and our room was pretty cozy.
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