We travelled down a very narrow, very dark road and found the carpark for the Poulnadrone. It was pitch black. No light pollution at all. We were the only vehicle in the carpark and when I got out of the van, I could not see a thing. We could have been anywhere in the world, and would not have known. It felt like we were just in our own dark bubble. It was a very peaceful night – one of the nights you dream about when living in a van.
In the morning we woke to a dolan, the Burren landscape and 2 cows. Sadly the carpark soon filled up, but breakfast was blissfully quiet. The dolan is one of a few single chamber portal tombstones we saw in Ireland. Made up of 3 standing stones and a horizontal capstone, it dates back to the Neolithic period. It is huge, and begs the question, how did they move the stones and, more surprisingly, how did they get the capstone in place. It is placed in one of the Burren’s most desolate and highest points, so the views were beautiful. It was a sunny day, even though we were in November, and the sky was clear and blue. 33 human remains were found when the site was excavated: adults and children.
The dolman is free to visit, but is protected by the Geological Society and has a guide on site. Unbelievably, people think it is acceptable to scrape their names into the soft rock of the dolan and the surrounding rocks. The landscape of County Clare is so beautiful, but people still think it is acceptable to damage it. We witnessed this while we were visiting, as a family thought etching their names for prosperity was more important than listening to the guide explain the damage they were doing to a site which has stood for 5000 years!
Getting back to the coast, where the waves met the Burren, we headed to Doolin Harbour.
The last time we were at the harbour, New Year’s Eve 2017, there had been a huge storm the night before, and half the car park had become rubble overnight. It has never been repaired, just expanded inland. The blue sky had clouded over and the sea was rough – luckily not as rough as 31st Jan 2017.
Doolin Cave was magical – highly recommended for anyone in the area. It was one of the locations which made its way into the book I wrote for my grandchildren, our littlest going in to save Ireland from the Giants. The cave contains the longest stalactite in Europe. There is a stalagmite below it , but you can see where this has collapsed a few times so, to date, they have never joined up.
The length of time these things take to form is unimaginable. I did, however, manage to imagine an undiscovered tunnel and cavern –
“Eventually, Mustela disappeared from in front of me, and I realised we had come to the cavern. It took me a while to straighten up and stand, I was so stiff. I stretched my arms above my head and circled my shoulders, getting the feeling back into them, while I looked around me in wonder. Rock-like icicles hung from the ceiling and seemed to grow out of the ground. They were beautiful. The torch light bounced off them as I gazed around. They were light in colour, much lighter than the rock of the walls and seemed magical.
“We need to move to the other side of the cavern,” said Mustela. “Move carefully, some of them are very delicate and they have been growing for many thousands, if not millions, of years. It is still perfect here, as no people have been here before.”
I could hear the awe in her voice, and felt the same. They were beautiful. I carefully followed her through the maze of rock icicles, wishing I could reach out to touch them, but feeling they were too magical and it would be wrong.” Sleeping Giants: A Puca Adventure (The Puca Adventures Book 1) eBook : Abbott, Emily : Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
Outside of the cave we were able to walk round to the original cave entrance. We had entered through a huge gated door, and down metal steps, before walking along some of the tunnels and caves which have been found. The first people to explore the caves, squeezed in through a gap in the rocks, with no idea where they were going, or what they would find. The owners had created a fairy trail before the entrance to the door, and the cave certainly seemed other worldly.
“Cone away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than
You can understand”
William Butler Yates – The Stolen Child
Sometimes, watching the news today, I think maybe our children would have been better off taken to a land by the fairies.
Van life is not all peaceful nights and beautiful days. As we left the Burren, we had a huge amount of recycling and were very low on power in the leisure batteries. Recycling on the move is difficult, wherever we are. In Ireland we had to look out for roadside recycling points, but they didn’t take everything. The one time we went to a recycling centre. Having checked on line beforehand, we had everything mixed together, only to be told that all recycling had to be separated. It was raining so hard that, when they suggested we put it in the general waste for a charge of €4, I am embarrassed to say that’s what we did. It feels so wrong, but sometimes we have no choice. (It was raining very hard!)
Even though we had been blessed with a large number of clear bright days, the sun is so low in the sky in the winter months, we get hardly any solar. Also, at this time of year, many camp sites close. Sometimes we have to resort to going for a very long drive and we have to plan our cooking to use the least amount of power possible. Having travelled from Doolin to Ballyvaughan, we decided on a pub meal, but the pub was so expensive, we had a quick drink and used the power we had to cook. We had a peaceful night, but I woke up feeling really low. I miss my family and friends while we are travelling. This was our first long adventure and although I was able to speak to everyone regularly and was in touch by social media and WhatsApp, it is not the same. I especially missed the littlest granddaughter. She was only a year old and growing so quickly. Also, I had been looking after her 1 day a week until I left work. They were precious days and it was hard to give them up, even to follow a dream. Thank you Aiden, for all the video calls.
Anyway, I pulled up my big girl pants, did an Aldi shop and visited the Burren visitor centre, learning all about the impressive landscape, and about the disappearing lake. When we visited it was visible.
Then the very pretty village of Kinnvara and a lovely pub, lifted my mood further and we found a camp site in Spiddal. Everything feels better when you have food, wine, clean clothes and can shower. In fact the showers were so good, I was able to dye my hair, and they had recycling bins!
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