Our 50th

Today is a big day for us, it is 50 years today since we first met. Now if I was being really pedantic about it we are actually a day late since when we met we were (obviously) in Australia and it is now the 6th of November in Australia - but that seems a bit too precise. But anyway 50 years seems like a significant milestone and we had planned to spend it on Aran Islands , so early this morning we were in the car headed towards Rossaveel (in heavy rain) where we were scheduled to catch a ferry to the town of Kilronan on Inishmore the largest of the three Aran Islands.

We had, after much trouble, managed to book a B&B on the island but other than that had no plans as to how we were going to get around the various sights. So we were actually quite pleased when, immediately after disembarking the ferry in Kilronan, we were accosted by a somewhat weather beaten man offering to take us on a tour of the sights. We were even more delighted to discover (after agreeing to his terms) that the tour would be in the back of a horse drawn buggy. So thats how we spent the middle of the day, clopping along the narrow paved roads behind Bob the horse, listening to some Island history from Shaun.

The most striking thing about the island has to be the fencing. The place is simply covered with stone fences. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that the entire island has been cordoned off into 50 meter squares with fences made of piled stones. With a current population of about 800 this island must have the largest ratio of stone fence per head of population of any place on earth.

A second really interesting sight was a chance to actually see a couple of patches of ground where the locals are making soil by putting down layers of sand and then sea weed on top of the natural rock base. We had heard about this in many places during this trip but this was our first sighting of the practice. It is a bit difficult to make out but photos 5,6, and 7 show seaweed on the ground.

I cannot overlook the islands prime attraction Dún Aonghasa, a fort consisting of a massive series of concentric circles of stone walls right on the cliffs edge at the highest point of the island. Today the cliffs are falling away so that the walls are now semi-circular, but still impressive.

We celebrated our anniversary in the only eating house that was open at this time of year, one of the local pubs. Where we had a couple of excessively large meals and a few drinks in the company of 6 locals and 1 other tourist.