Each week is a little different. As I get a bit more settled, meet people, find my way around, life feels less strange, more familiar. This week I have been in Westport for 5 weeks. Soon I will stop counting and just BE here.
Last week I drove for the first time, something I was irrationally terrified at the prospect. Well maybe not so irrationally; having been carted around a bit on the back roads, I just don't look anymore. The margin of error on not slamming into a tree or stone wall must have given rise to the measurement of the 'nano.'
But driving myself from Castlebar where I picked up the Ford Fiesta rental car (a piece of US crap if there ever was one) to Dublin was daunting. Not the least because I STILL don't get driving on the right. I continue to look in the wrong direction and so spend long minutes studying the road before venturing across. I must look like a right idjit!
But I did ok, especially on the satanic roundabouts where everything in you is screaming that everyone is going the wrong way and we will all DIE!! I did ok. I chanted the mantra 'driver is always on the middle line in the road, middle line in the road' and that really helped. I only found myself on the wrong side of the road once and that was solely beacuse there were no lines on the country lane and no one else on the road for me to gauge my position against.
I took the big highways from Castlebar to Swinford, Charlestown and on toward Sligo where I stopped at Strandhill on the Atlantic to see the incredible waves the last evening's storm had brought in and indulged in a seaweed bath at Celtic bathhouse. Very relaxing although soaking in a tub of tendrilly seaweed seemed strange, slimy, sea-smelling and yet very relaxing. And supposed to be moisturizing as well but I can't say that I noticed that improvement.
I also drove up the side of a mountain in pursuit of the Carrowmore Megalithic Tombs, 5 passage tombs from pre-Christian times. I drove along the ledge of a skimpy track which was barely hacked into the side of the mountain, no guard rails, edging astonished sheep out of the way with the front of my funky Ford, and then got stuck. No place to turn around unless you consider 1000 feet down a way out. So I rocked the car a little, found traction, and continued on, through potholes the size of ponds, and a track that looked more like a riverbed.
I love doing these things, looking for remote artefacts in isolated places but why do I always have to do it ALONE!?? I considered the real possibility that there was no place to turn around, the weather was changing into something like a storm, and where the fuck was I?? Thankfully, responding to my prayers, a flat place opened up marked with a sign for the Tombs several km further off, down the side of the mountain. I got out of the Ford and made my way down mountain a bit but saw nothing resembling a tomb unless it was my own so returned to the Ford which I was now praising to the high heavens, clumsily turned in a 12-point turn, and weak-kneed, made my way down the river bed, through the ponds, past the still astonished sheep, stopped to open the cattle gate, stopped to close the cattle gate, and then as I hit tarmac, breathed a sigh of relief. Back in civilization once again.
I made a promise to myself -- no more remote wanderings solo, I will have to explore with others from now on. Not that I was ever in any real danger, but the view which I was rewarded with at the top of the mountain proved to me that I was in true Irish wilderness, remote and beautiful but not even within cell phone coverage if I should need a tow out.
Last week I drove for the first time, something I was irrationally terrified at the prospect. Well maybe not so irrationally; having been carted around a bit on the back roads, I just don't look anymore. The margin of error on not slamming into a tree or stone wall must have given rise to the measurement of the 'nano.'
But driving myself from Castlebar where I picked up the Ford Fiesta rental car (a piece of US crap if there ever was one) to Dublin was daunting. Not the least because I STILL don't get driving on the right. I continue to look in the wrong direction and so spend long minutes studying the road before venturing across. I must look like a right idjit!
But I did ok, especially on the satanic roundabouts where everything in you is screaming that everyone is going the wrong way and we will all DIE!! I did ok. I chanted the mantra 'driver is always on the middle line in the road, middle line in the road' and that really helped. I only found myself on the wrong side of the road once and that was solely beacuse there were no lines on the country lane and no one else on the road for me to gauge my position against.
I took the big highways from Castlebar to Swinford, Charlestown and on toward Sligo where I stopped at Strandhill on the Atlantic to see the incredible waves the last evening's storm had brought in and indulged in a seaweed bath at Celtic bathhouse. Very relaxing although soaking in a tub of tendrilly seaweed seemed strange, slimy, sea-smelling and yet very relaxing. And supposed to be moisturizing as well but I can't say that I noticed that improvement.
I also drove up the side of a mountain in pursuit of the Carrowmore Megalithic Tombs, 5 passage tombs from pre-Christian times. I drove along the ledge of a skimpy track which was barely hacked into the side of the mountain, no guard rails, edging astonished sheep out of the way with the front of my funky Ford, and then got stuck. No place to turn around unless you consider 1000 feet down a way out. So I rocked the car a little, found traction, and continued on, through potholes the size of ponds, and a track that looked more like a riverbed.
I love doing these things, looking for remote artefacts in isolated places but why do I always have to do it ALONE!?? I considered the real possibility that there was no place to turn around, the weather was changing into something like a storm, and where the fuck was I?? Thankfully, responding to my prayers, a flat place opened up marked with a sign for the Tombs several km further off, down the side of the mountain. I got out of the Ford and made my way down mountain a bit but saw nothing resembling a tomb unless it was my own so returned to the Ford which I was now praising to the high heavens, clumsily turned in a 12-point turn, and weak-kneed, made my way down the river bed, through the ponds, past the still astonished sheep, stopped to open the cattle gate, stopped to close the cattle gate, and then as I hit tarmac, breathed a sigh of relief. Back in civilization once again.
I made a promise to myself -- no more remote wanderings solo, I will have to explore with others from now on. Not that I was ever in any real danger, but the view which I was rewarded with at the top of the mountain proved to me that I was in true Irish wilderness, remote and beautiful but not even within cell phone coverage if I should need a tow out.
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