Lots of driving today on Monday. We travelled 4 hours from Clogheen to the lovely town of Westport in county Mayo. As you drive into westport, you can't help but notice the massive mountain Croagh Patrick looming over the city. To me it looked the size of Mount Everest so when Carl said we are climbing to the top, I thought he was absolutely crazy! Fast forward one hour and we are in our hiking gear making our way up the mountain like the thousands of pilgrims who have gone before us trying to reach the tiny church St Patrick reputedly built at the peak. It's a challenging hike. The first half of the 2500 foot ascent is steep. The mountain is covered in loose stones so you must constantly watch your footing - thank God we brought our hiking poles! Carl has reached the top twice on previous trips and I had great intentions of reaching the peak too but alas it was not meant to be. At 2000 feet, two things happened: we realized we were going to run out of time (we didn't start the climb until 3:30) and could possibly still be on the mountain after 8pm, and I then just got plain exhausted - the last 500 feet are at a 20% grade with ridiculous amount of loose stone so we turned back. The trip down is slow because you have to watch your footing on the loose stones the whole way down. The views of Clew Bay are spectacular though and make the arduous trip worthwhile. Total length of the climb up and back was 12 kilometres.
St Patrick greeting visitors to his mountain.
Headed back to hotel to rest our aching bodies. We then spent the evening at Matt Malloy's pub (he's one of The Chieftains) watching live Irish traditional music - a real "session" - they were all very talented musicians. Before the pub we enjoyed excellent smoke salmon and fish and chips at The West restaurant. Tomorrow we head to Ballinasloe to stay with uncle Niall and meet up with Mom who is arriving there tomorrow too.
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