Travelling Tim

Cliffs of Moher

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Up early, I walked up the road for coffee before heading south. Fun fact, the feature image from the Galway post was actually taken today, and not yesterday. I knew where the yellow and blue houses were and made sure I got a good photos of them.

I left the maps on ‘avoid tolls’ – I wasn’t sure it was going to add much time to the drive, or how to pay the tolls at this point, so it just became a thing that I would avoid all tolls. I headed south following the coast before turning slightly inland and heading higher. I passed through The Burren with its limestone hills and stopped to enjoy the view, in both directions, down the valley and up into the hills.

It was a pleasant winding country road, that had a very convenient place to stop and take photos back down the valley.

Local farmer needing to move their cattle around, little less convenient, though we were moving again in few moments. I mean, I barely had time to focus the camera properly.

The Cliffs

After around an hour and a half I found myself at the carpark. I wasn’t at the cliffs yet. I parked, made sure I had all my camera gear – this was one of the times where I took basically everything I had on the trip with me. I didn’t know when lenses I would need – so backpacks were called for, not just shoulder bags 😅

You enter in through the bus parking area a large hill on your right with the visitor’s centre built into it, keeping it out of the way. (It was at this point while writing that I realised I hadn’t taken a single photo from here. Not even with my phone.)

I followed the path up the hill and towards the tower at the top. First view of cliffs is looking south west. Without people in the frame it is really hard to get an idea of the scale. Good thing there are people in the photo – top left, walking along the cliff top.

Near the top of cliffs and O’Brien’s Tower looking South West. In the distance is Moher Tower at Hag’s Head.

I kept walking along, up the stairs to the top, stopping to get some photos of the cliffs themselves and all the extremely not seagulls but are actually Kittiwakes (in the gull family) and fulmars – though don’t ask me to explain which are which.

A species of gull soaring with a clear blue sky in the background

The light and conditions were changing constantly. It was either deep grey clouds with no definition, or bright blue clear skies. Sometimes it was in between. I kept walking along the top following the cliffs north.

There seemed to be to an incredible number of French school trips visiting the cliffs today. Like, at least one, probably two. Probably something to do with EU or whatever.

The walk along the top of the cliff.
A view of the cliff walk at the Cliffs of Moher. There is green grass along the top of the cliffs. There is ocean spray coming up over the edge from the water below.

Along the top the cliffs were green, and windy. Despite the height there was still sea spray coming over the edge in parts.

I decided this was a pretty good spot to stop and turn around. Before I left the cliffs I had done over 13,000 steps, and climbed 62 flights of stairs. I am not sure how accurate the second number is, but I felt like it was.

The clouds had started to clear and there was blue sky now, even if it was still very windy.

I got back to the bus carpark and headed into the visitor’s centre built into the cliff. I found the cafeteria that was optimised for school groups and got some lunch. Then back to the car, and a short drive along the cost to Hags Head and then to Limerick for the night.

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