I found German WWOOFers on the island, and we played tennis - with a dog that looked like Rudy!!!
Getting caught in the rain...and trying to take shelter in a pirate ship?
Ponies on the Shore Road!
Enchanting
Off to find the Skelligs, on the other side of the island! Here is a song about them, by Loreena McKennit (one of my favorite artists), if you want to listen to it while looking at these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zE3oAZnsuc
Biking along the sea: I was surprised the water was so clear.
Where am I?
Found Bray Head...now beginning my hike!
Whoops.
A lamb!!! (and they are walking right on the cliff, by the way, with no fence or anything)
Anam cara? (which means "soul friend" in Irish)
Lambies nursing...aw!!
The Skelligs
So happy
Long hike up Bray Head
Looking back at how far I had come...
Finally made it to the top!
Wrote in my diary a few months ago that one of my dreams was to lie on my belly on the cliffs of western Ireland....can check that one off.
'Bout a hundred foot drop, though.
Somehow I wasn't scared lying there...but when I stood up, I realized my heart was pounding and I was full of adrenaline!!
"Beneath these jasmine flowers
Amidst these cypress trees
I give you now my books
And all their mysteries."
"Many a year was I
Perched out upon the sea
The waves would wash my tears,
The wind, my memory."
Skellig Michael, the larger island in the distance, is one of the reasons we still have great works of literature today. It is home to an ancient monastery established around 200 A.D., built of bizarre beehive-looking huts of stone. Here the monks painstakingly copied out books, while Europe burned them. The monks hid themselves successfully from the rest of the world for 600 years (except for several Viking raids), only preserving manuscripts. We are indebted to them. We take it as common that we know the history of ancient Rome or can read Greek plays or even the Bible - but it is only because of these monks: otherwise this all would have died with the Dark Ages.
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