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Today started off rainy again. But we were determined to head out and drive around the Connemara region. Our first stop was the small village of Cong. Cong is where the The Quiet Man starring John Wayne was filmed. We’re not big Duke fans, so we were not interested in any of that. We came for the ruins of the Cong Abbey.
While it was raining, the rain had died down quite a bit so walking about the ruins and in the forest was rather pleasant. And in the forest itself we were shielded from any rain that was still falling.
As we walked the trail Cynthia and I heard some kind of animal shrieking periodically. Cynthia said “What is that?” and before I could say anything a falcon swooped down the forest path right past us and landed in a tree over our heads. Just then a man came walking around the bend and we quickly discerned that he was a falconer. He told us that the bird was a young Harris Falcon named Beckett and that he was raised by hand and was only about 4 months old. Cynthia captured this photo of the handsome creature
We left Cong and made our way to Westport. The rain was coming down a bit heavier and we didn’t really care to stop here. I am sure it is a fine town and perhaps with more time and better weather we would have given it more of a chance.
We pushed on past toward Louisburgh before turning south to drive through Tawnymackan Bog and some of the most beautiful scenery we have every experienced. And to make it even better, the rain stopped and the sun started to show through the clouds. Things were looking up for us.
We drive down roads that were barely able to fit two cars passing each other, but most of the time we had the whole road to ourselves without another car in sight. We passed a waterfall coming off of a mountain and parked to take some photos.
As we drove down these twisty narrow roads we encountered many sheep just wandering around. Some on the road, some on rocks overlooking the road. All in all it was desolute, often moody with the changing weather and completely fantastic.
We wrapped up the journey with a visit to the Kylemore Abbey
From there we set a direct course to Galway.
For this trip we started off at about 8:30 am and were back in the hotel by 6:30 pm. So that’s about 10 hours to cover almost 150 miles. What an adventure!
Tomorrow we make our way to Dingle.
The picture of the rapids with the white house above them (just outside of Lenane) is the place where the fight to the death scene was filmed in the movie “The Field”.
Wonderful photos, you two. Cynthia is every bit as good as you, Jay.