This past weekend I signed up to go on a hike to the Connemara region of Ireland. However, the hike was cancelled because the mountain was too muddy to walk up. My friends and I had been looking forward to the hike and refused to sit inside the rest of the day just because our plans were ruined. We decided to walk to Menlo Castle which can be seen across the river from the path that runs by the NUIG sports fields, but to walk there you have to go around the river about four miles.
So, we started our journey and ended up walking on very narrow, very country roads. In our four mile journey there were about three cars that passed us on the road. The hike was uphill, so we were able to see the terrain and landscape of Galway. From the NUIG campus and even Galway city one would assume that the entire area is quite flat; there aren’t many hills in the city or its suburbs. However, when we reached the top of the hill in Menlo we were able to see over the city, campus, and beyond. At this point I realized that there are large mountains and valleys very close to the university. I could also see lakes and ponds that I never knew were there before. It was really interesting to see all of the geographical features that I didn’t know the Galway area had. It is crazy to think that I have been here for two months and have never noticed them before. (I didn’t get any pictures from the hill because it was pouring rain…as always 😉). We finally reached the road that led to Menlo Castle, but there was a gate and a private property sign standing in our way. None of us knew what to do. Luckily a local man came by and we asked him how to get to the castle. He directed us down the path that had the private property sign posted and he told us to pick some garlic on the way? Well this was something new to me. I’d never been anywhere were there was wild garlic to pick. Another unexpected aspect of the Irish landscape. My friends and I attempted to pick the garlic, but the bulbs were too big to pull out by hand and none of us had any other way of getting them out. Oh, well. We continued down the path and came to a clearing where we finally saw Menlo castle…300 yards away. Defeated, we trudged back down the path again and were back where we started. We now saw the correct path to get to the castle but there were about 20 cows blocking the way. Mud pits and leafy trees one minute and an open field of cows the next…this is truly the Irish landscape. At this point there was no stopping us from getting to that castle, so we slowly inched our way towards the random cows, and they did not care about us one little bit. Once past the cows we were at Menlo Castle. I then realized that the Irish landscape had surprised me once again by hiding away a grand castle in the middle of a cow pasture…wild stuff. The castle ruins were very neat to explore (see my pictures below). I guess the moral of this blog post is to always take advantage of your host location because even by walking a mile or so up the road you can learn so much more about your city and it’s history/landscape.
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