...recounts the retirement travels of Mark and Vicki Sherouse since 2008...in Asia and the Pacific, New Zealand, Europe, South America, and Africa, as well as the US and Canada. Our website, with much practical information, is: sites.google.com/site/theroadgoeseveron/.Contact us at mark.sherouse@gmail.com or vsherouse@gmail.com.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Bru na Boinne
Knowth, and a couple of its satellites
Knowth kerb stone, one of 127
Knowth's eastern passage way, longest of any megalithic structure
Newgrange's entry stone
Newgrange; the facade is reconstructed original
The "Stone of Destiny" at Tara; found nearby, erected in 1928
All the previous megalithic stuff, however interesting (to us), was mere prelude. Saturday we toured Bru na Boinne, the megalithic super-complex on the River Boyne in County Meath...Newgrange and Knowth, and later, Tara Hill.
Newgrange is a massive solar site, like Stonehenge in England, but very, very large, and fully mounded. It has a few carved stones, like Gavrinis in Morbihan, which has lots, but is in its size an architectural wonder, especially for its 5000-6000 year age. The corbaled vaulting in the central chamber is incredible. 200,000 tons of stone comprise the structure. Knowth is a more recent discovery, larger than Newgrange, with an east/west orientation, and has the longest interior passage way of any known tumulus. Were that not enough, at least half its giant kerb stones, 127 of them, are carved, although not as delicately as Gavrinis. A third tumulus, Dowth, midway in size between Newgrange and Knowth, is still not open to the public. All three are within a few km of each other, as are scores of lesser tumuli. Knowth is surrounded by such satellite tumuli.
The Office of Public Works visitor center, museum, displays, and tours were superb. Our only complaint was that not enough time was allowed for Knowth, where the carved stones are all visible and want attention. At Newgrange, you simply enter the passage with a guide, proceed to the central chamber, and are given a 60 watt light bulb demonstration of what winter solstice looks like inside, through the 5,000-year-old light-box. But it's still pretty moving. After a couple weeks of touring here, I am deeply impressed by Ireland's care for these monuments, display and interpretation of them, and making them a central feature of tourism here. Bravo!
Tara Hill is the site of an iron-age fort, that of the Irish kings of yore. Only the mounds and ditch-work remain, but the site's command of the countryside is impressive.
All in all, an incredible day.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
A Day in the North: Giant's Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede, and beyond
The giant, Finn MacCool (how cool a name is that?), built the causeway to Scotland, to do battle with a giant there, or possibly to toss the Ring into Mt. Doom... |
Fortunately, he built using these six-sided basaltic colums |
Basaltic columns, up-close |
Bushmills and the Causeway looked like Sturgis with all the bike folk gathering for a big European road race |
But nary a Harley in sight |
Vicki crossing the rope-bridge to the sea stack at Carrick-a-Rede |
The rope bridge |
Coolest green tunnel so far, country road 5 km or so west of Bushmills |
We ended up camping at Rush, on Dublin Bay, in a hurricane; note Martello tower in distance |
Old Bushmill's
Drinking is my sole spiritual experience these days, but I am at least ecumenical in my drinking. And so we had to visit the Old Bushmill's Distillery while in Bushmill. The campground was practically adjacent to the distillery. (Bushmill's is Protestant. the others, Catholic). Many of you will be wondering what has been my assessment of the four great Irish whiskeys, Jameson's, Paddy's, Power's, and Bushmill's. I have indeed sampled them all, some more than others. I still favor Jameson's and Bushmill's, as before coming to Ireland. But I also sampled a boutique whiskey, Michael Collins, in Dublin, and it was by far my favorite. In any case, I have to plead insufficient sampling so far.
Ireland's oldest (well, Northern Ireland's oldest), chartered in 1608 |
The sweet aroma of the mash was, well, intoxicating |
Great spirituality |
Comparable to Jameson's, gift shop-wise |
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Drumcliffe
Carremor Tombs and Drumcliffe
Grand tomb at Carramor; a huge mound with inner courtyard and chambers
Dolmen within the tomb
Circle with dolmen, a few hundred feet away
More stone circles in the complex
We spent most of the morning querying and researching German customs regulations about receiving the Grey Wanderer in Bremerhaven. There are always complications, and our shipper has not served us well in alerting us to costs and other matters. More on all this as it develops.
After lunch we began our drive to Northern Ireland, through Sligo, Donegal, Derry, and beyond to Bushmill, where we are presently camped. It rained throughout the day but let up this evening just long enough for us to pitch our trusty and so far water-proof tent.
Our major stop of the day was at the Carramore Tombs just west of Sligo. This is another enormous megalithic complex...dozens of passage graves, dolmens, stone circles and the rest. Here, however, they are almost unimaginably old, going well past 6,000 years.
Then just north of Sligo, we stopped at Drumcliffe, the site of Yeats' grave, and itself a site of considerable interest, the monastery dating back to 574. The little church was a model of simplicity and beauty.
Ceide Fields and Dunbriste
A totally duded-up Cooper S right there on the coast road; nobody home
6,000 year old stone wall at Ceide Fields
Downpatrick Head and the sea stack, from Ceide Fields
The blow hole on Downpatrick Head, 100 meters or so from the cliff edge, enormous...
The sea stack, Dunbriste; it separated from the Head in 1393; two families were isolated, later rescued
After lunch, we drove on to Ballycastle, just beyond it, to the Ceide Fields. In the last couple decades, archaeologists have discovered, surveyed, and partly excavated a neolithic system of fields encompassing many hundreds of acres—all bounded by stone fences, structures—that date back to the 4th millennium BC, 6,000 years. It is the largest neolithic site yet discovered, anywhere. Relatively little has been excavated, but there is a good modern museum and brief guided tours. The Ceide Fields lie beneath an enormous blanket peat bog, 1-2 meters deep generally, and thus their preservation. (No decomposition in bogs, where there is little oxygen.) Ireland was heavily forested in neolithic times, pine, hazel and elm. Clearing the forests made herding and grain-growing possible, but it eventually led to super-saturated ground that becomes the bog.
The Ceide Fields run right down to the cliffs and the sea, and not far from them is one of County Mayo's most famous sights, Downpatrick Head, and the sea stack there, Dunbriste. Finding and walking out to Dunbriste, past the enormous blowhole in the middle of the cliffs, was another incredible treat and a fine way to end the day. We camped, under gathering rain clouds, at Ballina.
Don't Pass Up the Mayo
Our negotiations with shippers, brokers, agents, bankers, customs officials, and others seemingly at an end (thank you, Rebecca), we took the day to explore the Hamburg centrum, mostly on foot. (See Vicki's blog for descriptions of the interesting circumstances regarding the shipping of the Grey Wanderer). It is a very old city, capital of the Hanseatic League before there was a Germany; but little of the really old remains. It is nonetheless an attractive city, with much to see and explore. Good beer, Bitburger, is 49 cents a half-liter bottle. FWIW. A bottle of Riesling was a buck, I mean, Euro. Somehow I resisted visiting the U-boat museum. Our explorations included the railway station ("Ich gehe zum Bahnhof"--some of my two years of German is coming back, slowly, in iotas..."the awful German language"), where we purchased tickets for tomorrow's ride to the port of Bremerhaven. Hopefully, we'll pick up the Grey Wanderer there on Friday. If not, we'll be at a hostel in Bremerhaven until we do....
Ascent of the Reek
Croach Parick, about 2,500 feet; this is the mountain on which the saint did Lent, 441AD, also from which he expelled the serpents and other unsavory things, etc.
I did not follow these rules exactly; nor did I see anyone else doing anything but praise the view and curse the steep scree and talus trail...
The pilgrims' trail, from the pass
Pilgrims must not trash the mountain!
The summit chapel
Clew Bay from the summit
Fields of peat on the other side
Aran Islands
Our encampment on Galway Bay
The Promenade, near Salthill, Galway Bay
Dun Anghus, another iron-age, pre-Christian fortress, on Inismor, Aran Islands
The view from Dun Anghus' west side...they didn't build a wall here
Me peering, cautiously, over the edge, an overhang with the sea 300 feet below
The "Seven Churches" area, Inismor
Aran Islands ferries
Building a new harbor on Inismor
County Mayo scene
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