We woke up in at
some ungodly hour, but couldn’t leave until the launderette opened at 7. Well,
that’s if we wanted to take our cleaned clothes with us. While waiting, I
cooked us some French toast.
We wanted to check
out the village of Cong and Ashford Castle, so headed back that way, first to
the Castle where Tom the gatekeeper let us in to view the gardens for 5 euro
(normally 10). We were not allowed access to the Castle for this price however.
As it turned out, the Castle was a 5 star hotel and Ross decided to go in to
ask for the cost of staying here, which we did. Well, as you would expect for
such a place it was very expensive. I mentioned Tom had told us we could get a
cup of coffee here and a “servant” went to check if coffee could be served by a
variety of other “servants.” He came back with a “No problem, sir. This way,
sir.”
I was in shock.
Neither of us was dressed for this sort of occasion, but Ross has this air of
authority, I think it might be called “ gravitas”, where he asks nicely, and
his requests are attended to. On the way to the drawing room where coffee was
to be served, we came across two huge Irish wolfhounds- big babies really at
only 18 months old and I stopped to pat one of them. I just remembered I didn’t wash my hands
before tucking into scones and jam!
We took our time
over coffee, admiring the views over Lough Corrib, as well as the beauty of the
interior of the hotel. Ashford Castle used to belong to the Guinness Family so no expense had been spared. It was opulent without being ostentatious. I’d have to win a lot more
than $32,000 to afford to stay here, so I lingered as long as possible, before
heading out to the gardens. We saw two “steeplejacks” working up on one of the
towers repairing some damage from Storm Desmond. I had never heard the word
before! You learn something new every day!
Well, it was
winter, but the gardens and the variety of trees were simply amazing. There
were so many different types of trees and shrubs they must have been imported
from other countries. We came across the falconer from the School of Falconry training a girl to handle Chico, the falcon, who was very obedient, and flew to her when called. Amazing! (see video.) We found “The Quiet Man House” which featured in the
movie starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara which we haven’t seen, but are
going to watch when we get back home. I climbed up into a tower (no mean feat) to
play Rapunzel, unsuccessfully, I might add.
Back to our camper
and off to the tiny village of Cong. It might be tiny but boy, the streets were
filled with vans, trucks and cars of every description. We don’t know where
they were all going as this is pretty much the end of the line. We bought some
postcards but the post office was closed for lunch so stamps are still missing.
Ross eventually found a parking spot, and we headed to the Crowe’s Nest Bar for
a bite to eat. Ross chose the seafood
chowder, while I chose the baked turkey and ham: heaven only knows why, because I
wasn’t even hungry after the scones! I managed to eat all the turkey and ham,
but couldn’t get through the huge mounds of mashed potato, and of course had to have the
obligatory cider to wash it all down.
Back on the road
again. We had heard that many of the roads up north were still flooded after
the storm, so made a split second decision to go inland to Athlone and head
north from there. It started pouring rain and still very, very windy- but we
managed to get to Hodson Bay Hotel on Lough Ree, and pull up in their carpark in
a high spot overlooking the lough, which had burst its banks in several places.
I made a quick meal of lasagna and salad before hitting the sack. What a very
comfortable “sack” it is too! It was almost 6pm!
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