Connemara National Park, County Galway, Ireland

Went for a walk for a few hours in Connemara National Park
in Ireland, walked up the maintained trail from the visitor centre to the nearby mountain. We didn't hit the top because some of the trail got a little exposed for my better half who was with me. Weather was misty and low cloud, but still some very nice views of the area and the coastline from the higher bits.




Their boggy type vegetation and heather is decidedly more prickly than ours:



What I'd call "alpine" at home is a highland peat bog, the result of the loss of the trees thousands of years ago.



the local mountains are still nice, and we went partially up
this one for a nice view.





and then dropped back down to the visitor centre.

Beautiful country, great report! Thanks!

Wow!

Beautiful pictures. I especially liked the one fourth from the bottom.

Great pics Phat. I went to Scotland back in '81 and have always wanted to go back to the area.
Looking at that rock fence in the first pic makes me wonder how much time and effort it took to build. No need for an exercise plan if you spent 8 hours a day working on that wall!

Bet the people who built these walls spent more than 8 hours a day working on it...

Still now, one is supposed to take care of them, no damage, pass only in special passing points, replace collapsed stones...

Aren't these walls (on Inis Oirr) works of art and hard work?

phat: Great pix. Did you reward yourself with a Guinness when you got down? (BTW, what was your favorite pub there?)

frenchie: That's some photo. I've heard of a captain telling Lloyd's of running into a reef, but never a wall?

The ship was wrecked in 1960 (about...), on the coast, then huge waves of an above-normal storm lifted it onto the shore, where it's still rusting. Very weird place. Just rock, rusting steel, meager plants, by the ocean...