Connemara Airport, Co. Galway, Oct 2010

To our nice surprise, early in October we found ourselves cruising west from Dublin and heading towards the famed and remote Aran Islands! These islands are a group of three islands: Inish Mhór, Inish Maan and Inish Sheer and they were among the last islands on our list of Irish islands still to be explored. Aer Arann runs daily flights to each of the islands.
Here we are waiting in the terminal in Connemara Airport near Inverin in County Galway.

Click each photo to enlarge

Connemara Airport, Co. Galway, Oct 2010

From the terminal we could see the aircraft. McBear said it was a Norman Islander. We had never flown Norman Islanders before and McBear was very excited.
"So, it's a short flight?" Tom asked.
"Well, kind of: 8 minutes in all!" McBear replied.
"Wow!" Roger calculated. "Passengers won't have much time to sip their coffee..."
The weather wasn't too nice, but the met office had issued a promising forecast for the day.

Connemara Airport, Co. Galway, Oct 2010

Blissfull, McBear switched on the microphone.
"Captain McBear and his cabin crew would like to welcome you all onboard this flight ..."
"No!" Roger interrupted as he had alreday guessed what McBear was about to say. "I am NOT your cabin crew...!"
McBear carried on with his briefing:
"On this flight AR001 from Connemara to Kilronain International on Inish Mhór we'll be reaching an altitude of a 1000 feet. Shortly after take off our cabin crew will begin serving you lovely fresh brewed coffee..."
Impatiently Roger pulled the headset off McBear and announced:
"Captain McBear will be delighted to come around and personally serve you all with coffee and a blueberry muffin - if we have any! But hurry up, please, you've only got 8 minutes to finish drinking and eating before touch down - and the coffee might be hot!"

Kilronain, Inish Mhór, Co. Galway, Oct 2010

Having arrived at Kilronain on Inish Mhór we found our way to the B & B Ard Mhuirís. The weather had changed to lovely sunshine.

Kilronain, Inish Mhór, Co. Galway, Oct 2010

The B & B had a lovely built in bear sized B & B! It was a lovely place... well, apart from no beds or anything, but it did have an appeal as if it was almost screaming: "Bears, come and stay here!" The only problem was McBear. He had certain difficulties accessing the house...
"I'll go and ask the landlady if she has a ladder..."

Kilronain, Inish Mhór, Co. Galway, Oct 2010

We wished to head out for sightseeing on Inish Mhór. Outside in the garden the B & B had a lovely garden house with thatched roof. It turned out however, that this house was even more difficulty to access than the B & B inside.

Kilronain, Inish Mhór, Co. Galway, Oct 2010

All of a sudden Roger had disappeared. To our surprise we found find him on top of the roof.
"What are you doing up there?" Tom asked. "We may not be allowed to climb the roof..."
"Well," Roger replied, "I was just checking whether we could access the house through the chimney. Now, it might be possible for me, but I am not sure about McBear! His bum might be the issue as he still spends too much time in front of his laptop not getting any exercise..."

Kilronain, Inish Mhór, Co. Galway, Oct 2010

We went sigthseeing on the island. Around 750 people live on the island, however, unfortunately the number is on decline. At first we went to downtown Kilronain. We stopped at the Pier House.
"What's the grey and dark odd looking thingie to the left?" Tom wanted to know.
"It's a curragh - a boat." McBear said. "They were very common in Ireland in the old days."

Inish Mhór, Co. Galway, Oct 2010

Then we headed west to see more of the island. Inish Mhór is around 12 kilometers long and 3 km wide. Most of the surface is made up of lime stone, and there is very little soil, so there are no forests at all. In fact, there are only a few trees.

Dun Angus, Inish Mhór, Co. Galway, Oct 2010

We wished to visit the world famous Dun Angus fort. It's made of local stones and is very old, in fact, it probably dates back to the bronze age. It was a very windy day and because the fort is located on on a cliff with a sheer drop and no fences, we were not allowed to be taken out of the bag...
Roger however insisted, so when the bag stopped moving up and down, we assumed it was put on the ground and our owner seemed to have gone - probably to takes some photos - and we sneaked out of the bag...

Inish Mhór, Co. Galway, Oct 2010

On the way down we came across another of these bear sized houses that seems to be very common on the island. By chance we meet three bears and toy animals and we decided to have a group photo taken. Unfortunately, we forgot to ask the name of the lady who owned the TA's - but we did give her our business card! We were hoping she would leave an entry in our guest book so we could send her the photos...

Inish Mhór, Co. Galway, Oct 2010

It's incredible the amount of people who wish to take a photo of us. Roger, of course, is used to the fuzz and he doesn't mind at all ... in fact, he does mind when he's NOT in front of a camera!

Inish Mhór, Co. Galway, Oct 2010

It had been a long day and tired we all sat down at the pier near Kilronain. Out in the bay we could see a light house on the small uninhabited islet, Straw Island.

Kilronain, Inish Mhór, Co. Galway, Oct 2010

On the day we left Inish Mhór we had great luck to be flying yet again with our captain. We even went with the captain to Inish Maan! Here we are before taking off from Kilronain before flying to Inishmaan. It is the captain waiting below the wing with the ground crew.
The captain noticed that Roger was wearing the same colours as the football team in Brighton, UK.
"Oh, is it? Wow! We went to Brighton this summer!" Roger replied. "It's a lovely city!"
"Yeah, they have a lovely beach there too!" Tom agreed, "Well, apart from the size of the stones in the sand..."
McBear was delighted to summarize that by now we had logged 5 flights with Aer Arann:
"To Inish Mhór twice, to Inish Maan once and returning to Connemara twice! Wow!"

Ashford Castle, Cong, Co. Mayo, Oct 2010

On the return to Dublin we stopped in Cong to have a lovely lunch at nothing less than ...Ashford Castle! Roger of course found it being only appropriate...