On our way to Galway today, we continued to travel along much of the Wild Atlantic Way Route. At Tarber, we took a small ferry across the River Shannon.
What a surprise to see Irish surfers on route to the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare!
We again ran into our photographer friend, Sharon, just in time for a picture with the majestic Cliffs of Moher in the background. These precipitous rock formations, towering more than 700 feet above the crashing ocean surf at their highest point, offer breathtaking panoramic views of Ireland’s Atlantic coast. These cliffs also provide nesting sites for tens of thousands of seabirds.
This is a zoomed in view at the end of this section of the cliffs
O’Brien’s Tower is a large structure built 1835 by Cornelius O’Brien as an observation tower for the hundreds of tourists that frequented the cliffs during that time. Folklore holds that he was a man ahead of his time, believing that the development of tourism would benefit the local economy and bring people out of poverty.
Below are the cliffs that can be seen below the tower to the right.
I again zoomed in at the end of this section of the cliffs.
Further up the coast, we arrive at the Burren. Its name is derived from a Gaelic word meaning “stony place,” and it is like no other place in Ireland. Instead of peat bogs and pastures, you’ll find a surreal moonscape full of huge limestone crags. In the distance, you can see the Cliffs of Moher
Our travel buddies, Ruth & Liisa, hanging out on the Burren
There are limestone rock walls everywhere. Even the distant hill of rock is subdivided with walls. Rory, our program directory, is a stonemason when he is not leading tours. He has worked on some of the stonewalls in this area and said that some walls date back 5,000 years.
Picturesque thatched roofed houses are more plentiful here.
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