Inis Mor

what a fabulous day, but we, well me anyway, will pay for it.
Early start this morning as we headed the down to Rossaveel for the ferry to Inis Mor, the largest of the Aran islands. The plan was to hire bikes and cycle round the island and visit Dun Aengus, the ring fort.
The drawback was the ferry trip - though he's better than me, neither Ciaran nor I are great on boats. We arrived in good time and get onto the ferry, careful to pick seats outside. Is a good dry day with a bit of a breeze but the crossing should be quick enough, and having taken the magic pills I was sure I would be OK.
Once we got onto the island we headed to the bike hire and choose bikes for the day and then headed off to get some sandwiches for the trip. Finally we were off.
There are not a lot of roads on the island so choosing a route was fairly easy. The island was amazing. Just the amount of stone was incredible. I would have been a hard life here before electricity and central heating - I bet its a hard life even with all that.

On our cycle we saw seals basking, though they are hard to pick out from the rock. Sadly the zoom on the camera doesn't make them much clearer.

We continued with our cycle for a little further until we came to a quiet place to have lunch after which we came upon the nicest beach I have seen in a long time.

If only Ireland had the climate, it would beat all tourist destinations, but its just too cold on this occasion.
After making it almost to the end of the line - it was almost to the end due to the nasty hill we climbed. Once we started the descent we figured the road just ended and we would have to climb back out and just couldn't face that - after all its our holiday - we headed off to the ring fort.
After cycling as close as we could, which was into the car park, we headed off on foot, with the fort sitting on the hilltop in front of us, with the cliffs beyond and the Atlantic behind.

The fort is essentially a series of concentric arcs of stone enclosing the top of the hill, with the other side being the 100m cliffs.
The effort to build this is not really comprehensible - the walls are 4m think in some places and 6m high.
But the real breath-taker is the cliffs.

The Cliffs of Moher get all the press but they are an extension of this outcrop.
What is most impressive is the completely open nature of it all - nothing except common sense between you and the 300ft drop

After taking in all the view had to offer it was back to the bikes (with the obligatory stop in the cafe) and the cycle back to the ferry.
The one thing I haven't mentioned is the weather. We have been very lucky today especially since we were basically stuck on the island all day. It not only stayed dry but was really quite warm (out of the breeze) and all three of us got some colour ie I am now lobster colour and darkening.