The Awe Inspiring Cliffs of Moher

Ruthiey and I went to the little tiny town of Doolin in order to do a hike along the Cliffs of Moher by recommendation of Wendy Nachreiner. Thanks Wendy! It would have been awful to miss these cliffs. (Side note - these are the 'Cliffs of Insanity' in Princess Bride, they also appear in Harry Potter)

 Ruthiey had a bit of a wonked knee from previous hiking trips, but she didn't want to miss this hike and so we geared up, packed a lunch and headed out into the cloudy morning.

This is like nothing I ever saw in my life, even in pictures and just so ya all know, pictures don't even capture half of this. It needs to be seen, heard and felt in person.

 This is the short end of the cliffs, right before they end in a crazy good surfer beach. This is where we started our hike.

 Ruthiey sea gazing. It was very distracting and hard to keep a steady pace with so much beautiful scenery.

 Me. Oh btw, my hairdo did not survive this trip, after it started hailing/raining and then with the wind being so strong, I had a whole new do by the end. :)

 The cliffs started getting higher and higher and we had a few moments like this one where we suddenly realized just how far down it was! At one point I dropped a rock over one of the cliffs and it fell for a long time before soundlessly breaking into pieces at the bottom. That was scary. It gives you floaty feelings in your stomach.  

 They are really truly dangerous cliffs. But they are kinda funny signs... :P

 Ruthiey posing with warnings.

More Cliff shots. The hike we went on the first day was 16 km long. The next day I went again by myself because Ruthiey's knee really needed a rest. The second day I did the 24 km route. this photo above and all the ones below are from my solo trip. It was quite cloudy both days.

 Both the sound and the silence of the Cliffs is amazing. Waves and wind, and sudden quiet. Because most of the trail that I was taking was on non-tourist routes, I saw maybe 4 people on the second day. (besides when I was passing the tourist center, maybe a 1 km stretch that had 100+ people behind shoulder high walls.)

 

 That tiny tower that you see on the jutting out bit is the tourist cliff. This is after I passed it.

I reached Hag's Head, which apparently looks like an old women looking out to sea, but maybe my imagination is just not quite there, cuz I didn't see it at all, but I did see this cool Sea Arch that would have been fun to kayak through

Hag's Head has an old castle tower on it, mostly destroyed but the skeleton looks cool, especially from a distance. 

This is from inside the tower looking back (North) the way I came. 

 So on the way back, I found this little trail, that you can barely see in the center of this photo, it goes down - almost a sheer cliff - down to this beach. I had seen some surfers coming up the trail while I was going towards Hag's Head so I decided to try and get down it. If there wasn't grass growing on this trail, it would be almost impossible to get down.

 But maybe because it was so hard to get to, it was really cool and I was very happy to have gotten down to it. Getting back up was another story altogether...
At the top, two Aussie boys were waiting, they said: "How'd you go?"
"Good!" I said, out of breath and my heart beating about 200 bpm. What I felt like saying was: "I'm alive!"
I told them how to get down to the beach and went on my way. That was really fun! But I was kinda glad Ruthiey hadn't been there to see it, just cuz she might have been a bit freaked out. :)
Love ya, little sis!

The sun, an elusive beauty that day, finally appeared, way off in the ocean. A fitting end to an excellent and exciting hike. I am afraid I won't enjoy other hikes with this as a comparison! So absolutely awe inspiring and epic! If any of you ever get a change to get out to Ireland, don't miss these Cliffs.