3/6/05

Happy Irish Mother's Day! After working we decided that we wanted to see the Ogham Stones near the Gap of Dunloe. We left the hostel around 4pm So we set out through the woods once off the main road to Kilorglin. It was a beautiful day. We ended up walking along the beach of Lough Leane. The sun at that time is a golden hue and makes everything on the lake and surrounding it look like it is glowing. So gorgeous. I don't actually know if it qualifites as a beach since the rocks are big and there is thick mud in places. But there is some sand. The beach soon turned into a classic Irish forest with green moss covered trees and rocks. We followed the lake until it cmae to a river. At this point we weren't sure whether we wanted to turn around and head back the same way we came, or continue onto the Ogham stones. It had taken us much longer than we thought it would to get to that point and we only had about an hour or so of daylight left. We didn't want to be trekking through unfamiliar woods at night. We decided to push on to the stones. Just then we saw a mamma deer and her fawn run from us on the lake edge water. very cool. Once walking by the river we saw two swans swimming serenly by. This part of the woods and river reminded us of the Eel River and surrounding woods in Indiana. We arrived in front of the stones after a long walk. The Ogham stones are large rocks that have survived from the 5th century. They display the earliest form of Celtic writing. They have lines or notches of varying quantity and size and position to represent letters. We took some pics and started to head home cuz it was getting dark very quickly. On the main road in Beaufort village we caught a ride back to the hostel from 4 drunk polish guys who had trekked through the Gap of Dunloe with some Irish coffee to "keep themselves warm". The driver said "No drink...no drive" and then the whole car laughed. Luckily we made it home with no incident. We have gotten a few rides with people that were loaded here in Ireland...I see a trend. It's not funny really I guess, but at the time..