Tuesday Sept 26/23 leaving Dunquinn.

 The forecast today was promising. There would be little to no rain and just a small amount of elevation.  Rain and elevation being the worst nightmare of a hiker. 

We had a nice breakfast, lots of coffee, orange juice, yogurt, fruit, salmon lox, and a cooked breakfast of our choice.  We packed up our bags and brought them downstairs ready for pickup.  We set out at 9:45. Our first stop, not too far down the road was at the ferry pier.  The ferries themselves were not running, weather was not conducive and more importantly they were now closed for the season.  It was a fairly steep climb down to the ocean level, and the wind was starting to blow. 

We continued on, following our yellow hiking signs and it started to sprinkle.  We arrived at the Blasket Centre and the heavens opened! The Blaskets are a group of islands just off the west coast of Ireland., A large island and a number of smaller uninhabited ones.  They became populated in the 16th century, entirely by Irish people, and the last inhabitants left in 1953. The population at it’s largest was less than 200. The government wanted the people to leave as emergency services, were virtually impossible particularly in the winter months.  Life was hard but the people enjoyed dancing and visiting with each other.  Many of the young people were leaving the island for America so the old folks who were left were finding it increasing difficult to cope with the harder work. 

The Blasket Center is preserving the story of early Irish life on a nearly uninhabited island. There were many story tellers on the island who have written books about their life there. There are a couple of films and photos of the residents, along with stories of their way of life.

We spent close to two hours there, and when the rain ended we started out again.  Our walk took us along similar paths to previous days .  We stopped into a pottery shop where Sandy bought us some yummy Irish chocolate they also had for sale.  Later in the day we stopped at a little artist gallery, where we enjoyed the art, but no purchases were made.  Soon we were at the ocean again, for the  2nd time today…on..our earlier stop we st3 our lunch on the sand.  Sandy and Joanie  decided  to take off their shoes and wade in the water. Cold but invigorating!  We had about 1 1/2 km left to our hotel CeannSibeal.  There are so many Irish names we cannot pronounce! 

After settling into our rooms we went out for a Guinness! Surprise! And at 7:30 we were downstairs  in our hotel for a delicious dinner! Finishing up by sharing two deserts, one of which was the classic sticky toffee pudding. Jan and I (muriel) elected to retire while the other two went to the bar across the street for a nightcap…..baby Guinness (delish) and a special gin drink!