The Third Day
Day three was miserable. I was miserable. For some reason all that standing around on rocks yesterday waiting for the sun to set in the freezing cold had left me with a killer sore-throat. The rain had started up again and I had at least four long hours drive to get to Achill Island. Woe is me. I decided to take a break in the city of Derry/London Derry (as it is known so as not to offend either Northerners or Southerners) for lunch and ended up spending an hour trying to find the Post Office as I was under the impression postage would be cheaper here- which it was not… Then after lugging my 8kg of clothes back to the car I spent another hour wandering aimlessly around a supermarket trying to find something to eat. By the time I got back on the road it was coming into evening and I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to drive to Achill in the dark, or spend a night in the city. Poor me.And so I drove in lashing rain, through towns untold, sights unseen, stopping every five minutes to let the throng of traffic stuck behind me pass. My vision became hazy and I gave up trying to pick out the potholes and small oceans that had formed on the road. If I got another flat tyre I’d just stay where I landed and curl up inside my surfboard bag. Hours and minutes passed and I finally came to the bridge to cross over onto Achill Island.
In my experience, islands are small easily navigated things, but then I’ve never driven on one, in the dark, in pouring rain, where all the road-signs are in complete Gaelic. Eventually after what seemed like an hour, and several laps around the island I made it to Valley, where I found the turn-off for Valley House, this night’s accommodation. And I took a turn into the most pot-holey road I have ever seen – or felt as was more appropriate. It was 200meters of more pot-hole than road. I prayed to the Motor Gods to get me through without four flat tyres and they must have been listening as I managed to pull up in front of the Valley House hostel. Relieved to have finally made it, I promptly went to bed, the only guest in a twelve bed dorm room, the only guest in the huge creaky old former hotel. Kinda spooky. I half expected a ghostly visitation during the night, especially as the former woman of the house was brutally attacked in the late 1800‘s – eye gouged and nose bitten off and left for dead (http://www.valley-house.com/history.htm) – which even though she didn’t die on that occasion would still have made for a pretty scary ghost. But either there was no ghost or it was scared off by my constant sniffing and hacking cough.
In the morning I had a chance to see what it was I had driven by in the dark the day before. Unfortunately the weather was still rather miserable, as was I. What better activity for such a mood on such a day than sploshing around on a flooded mountain side amidst the ruins of a deserted village. Slievemore village consists of over 80 dwellings deserted during the Famine when the occupants were driven closer to the coast for its source of food (http://www.achilltourism.com/deserted.html).
The cloud hung low over the island but I could still see as I drove away from the deserted village, and into the civilized one that it was a ruggedly beautiful place. On a sunny day, one could choose to climb mountains, walk around lakes or across cliffs, or swim or surf at long sandy beaches. But today was not sunny, so after leaving my soaking shoes in the car, I settled for a bowl of soup in the local café. After which I took a quick tour around the rest of the island, noticed that even the sheep were sheltering wherever they could, and decided that this would be the end of my trip. It was time to go home.
Three hours later after fording many flooded roads and trying to ford one but having to turn back and take a detour when Henry started gurgling (which really is not the sort of sound you want to hear a car make) I arrived back to the comfort of my little caravan. One day of rest, two days of work and then I’ll be crossing oceans on an even bigger adventure.
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Em
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