Today was about backtracking to the bits I'd missed out a couple of days ago in my haste to get to my booked campsite at Lettergesh. A 2 hour ish drive back through Westport and Newport got me out to the Achill Sound and over the bridge onto the Island.
My first point of interest was Keem Bay, the most western point on the island, unless you want to go hiking. Campervans aren't allowed right to the beach and park slightly further up the hillside. A moderate strand (beach) which was very popular, but little else. The mountain side pass road was in parts steep, offering some great vistas.
I drove back through the relatively flat almost sea level plain of Keel and the took the coastal loop around the south of the Sraheens Bog. At Cloughmore there is a small harbour at the entrance to Achill Sound, with the Kildavnet Tower, once a home in the late 1500s of a pirate queen Grace O'Malley, who controlled a fleet of between 5 and 20 ships and was reputed to have negotiated with Elizabeth I.
The coastal loop route proved to be a single track windy up and down route including hairpins. But the views were worth it although you needed to watch the road for sheep who hadn't been taught their green cross code.
Heading back to base I took the more coastal Wild Atlantic Way route from Westport towards Leenaun. Initially a road hugging the shoreline, once out west it cut inland through the much more spartan and rugged Doo Lough area. Again some wonderful countryside but with horrible legacy, as with much of the wider western Ireland, of the famines in the 1840s. This route had a memorial to some 600 who had set out for assistance of poor commissioners in Delphi. They were turned away and an unknown number perished as they then tried to return home following the mountainous sheep tracks and streams.
Eventually the road emerges alongside the Killary Fjord. Many of the roads and causeway to this area, were built for low wages in return for famine relief. The Assleagh Falls tip into the top end of the Fjord.
I drive back to Lettergesh and the campsite alongside Lough Fee.
And finally time to chill out on the Connemara Camping and Caravanning Park from their beach access watching the sun set over Inishturk on the longest day.
My first point of interest was Keem Bay, the most western point on the island, unless you want to go hiking. Campervans aren't allowed right to the beach and park slightly further up the hillside. A moderate strand (beach) which was very popular, but little else. The mountain side pass road was in parts steep, offering some great vistas.
I drove back through the relatively flat almost sea level plain of Keel and the took the coastal loop around the south of the Sraheens Bog. At Cloughmore there is a small harbour at the entrance to Achill Sound, with the Kildavnet Tower, once a home in the late 1500s of a pirate queen Grace O'Malley, who controlled a fleet of between 5 and 20 ships and was reputed to have negotiated with Elizabeth I.
The coastal loop route proved to be a single track windy up and down route including hairpins. But the views were worth it although you needed to watch the road for sheep who hadn't been taught their green cross code.
Heading back to base I took the more coastal Wild Atlantic Way route from Westport towards Leenaun. Initially a road hugging the shoreline, once out west it cut inland through the much more spartan and rugged Doo Lough area. Again some wonderful countryside but with horrible legacy, as with much of the wider western Ireland, of the famines in the 1840s. This route had a memorial to some 600 who had set out for assistance of poor commissioners in Delphi. They were turned away and an unknown number perished as they then tried to return home following the mountainous sheep tracks and streams.
Eventually the road emerges alongside the Killary Fjord. Many of the roads and causeway to this area, were built for low wages in return for famine relief. The Assleagh Falls tip into the top end of the Fjord.
I drive back to Lettergesh and the campsite alongside Lough Fee.
And finally time to chill out on the Connemara Camping and Caravanning Park from their beach access watching the sun set over Inishturk on the longest day.
