A Very Busy Weekend

The weekend began early saturday morning when a few of us decided to venture off to the seaside town of Ballycotton. It promised to be an adventuresome day as we knew very little about where we were going and more or less just picked it at random. Skepticism began to creep in when about six of us got on the bus and the bus driver said "well the population of Ballycotton just doubled with all of you" but we were undeterred. When we arrived in the bite-sized fishing town we were greeted by a beautiful view of an island with a lighthouse underneath a great looking sunrise and with that, the nervousness subsided. As amazing as the views and natural beauty of this area was, it soon became apparent why this town was not highly recommended by the native Irish people. The town had only one store and three pubs (there is about 1 pub for every 300 people in the country of Ireland). Thankfully we had not come to hang out in the town but rather to climb out to the cliffs and to enjoy some of Ireland's natural beauty.

After a quick meal in a great little pub, we realized that the tide had gone down and created a perfect, albeit rocky and slippery, path out to one of the islands. We carefully navigated our way out to this island covered in some of the greenest grass I have ever laid eyes on. The views were extraordinary and it was really cool to be out on a completely natural island where I can only assume few people go. We spent the rest of the day climbing all over the cliffs and seaside rocks and caves and sufficiently wore ourselves out.  All in all it was a great day and made better by the fact that we had no expectations going into it.

View of the lighthouse island from the island that we climbed out to

******

The Paps were the destination of the second hike through the Mountaineering club. "The Paps", we were told, literally means "the breasts" and that the ancient celtic people saw these mountains as the breasts of their goddess of fertility. An interesting theory no doubt. When we got to the base of the mountain it was terribly foggy. We could barely see the mountain at all and the fog only got thicker as we ascended. Just when we thought we would not get to see any of the amazing views that day, we actually climbed out of the clouds and found ourselves looking down on them. It was one of the most incredible views to be standing on top of the mountain looking down on clouds. It looked as if we were on an island and the adjacent peaks were quite literally "peeking" up through the veil of clouds. At that point the view opened up and we were able to see why the mountains had the name that they did.

Here you can see the two further peaks are the paps

The ancient celtic people built nipples on top of the peaks... why not?

The weekend was just incredible with two days packed full of beautiful views, lots of hiking and plenty of fresh air.

Well, today is my birthday so I am sure there will be some festivities tonight! I will hopefully update again soon!