Wild Galway

Galway has been a ‘place to visit’ on my bucket list for a long time. I’ve seen photos of it looking like some kind of paradise, wild rocky inlets on white sandy beaches with crystal clear waters. I needed to find out if it was true! 

To get to wild Galway we had to go through the city of Galway. I’d read in some of the motorhome groups that Galway city was not motor home friendly.  Well I think they might be right … we struggled to park anywhere.  We found a car park on the outskirts of the city but close to the beach, at the back of a sports leisure centre, where we saw no signs saying that we couldn’t park there. We went off to get lunch, but came back after only 30 minutes to eat it in the van as it was about to rain, when there was a sharp knock on the van door and a man shouted that they would be closing the height barriers RIGHT NOW!! He repeated RIGHT NOW!!

We quickly moved to a coach parking area, ate our lunch and left Galway city! 

From there we headed along the coastline and it wasn’t long before things started to look up! 

The coast line stretched out ahead of us along open terrain and with mountains in the distance and sparsely populated. 

The sun was shining as we hit the first beach at the village of Spiddal.

A long white sandy beach with rugged dark rocks, dark green seaweed breaking up the beach and crystal clear blue sea. 

I had slipped as we left the previous campsite and fallen on my hand, it was started to stiffen up and was quite painful, so whilst I sat in the van feeling sorry for my self with an ice pack and couple of painkillers, Bob went off metal detecting. 

He’s been having a good time doing this at each beach we visit, he’s found a number of silver rings, a vast amount of euros and he’s made lots of friends. The Irish aren’t shy and are very interested, so it has provoked a lot of conversation, a few people even asking for him to find something they have lost. More on that later…

 That night we stayed down on the pier-side at Spiddal, great views and another gorgeous beach but away from the noise of the main road. 

We got chatting to a very friendly truck driver who was delivering water to local residents. The local water had been contaminated with manganese and was undrinkable. Luckily, we had filled up earlier elsewhere and didn’t need to topup our water. 

Before we set off the next day, we stopped at the nearest grocery store and I got chatting to a sales assistant, she told me we MUST visit Coral Beach and explained exactly how to get there. So we did! 

WOW! What a beach. The next two days were spent on what we think, are the best beaches in Galway. 

Coral Beach – so-called because the sand is actually red coralline algae that has died and been washed up onto the beach from Greatmans Bay. It consists of small grey, white and brown pieces called ‘Maerl’ and small shells – I scooped up a jar-full to take home, it looked so interesting. It’s unique to only a few beaches in West Ireland and creates an unusual and fragile habitat of huge conservation value. The beach itself was stunning, remote with rocks to climb across and a nice walk along the rugged broken coastline full of bird life looking out for fish. It felt very peaceful here with only a few other friendly locals popping down for a walk or bathe. The water was crystal clear and  I enjoyed a great swim all alone in a little bay as the tide came in. 

We spent a very quiet night looking up at a sky full of stars – no light pollution so we could see constellations, milky way and meteorites. We would’ve stayed longer had it not been forecast that Storm Fiona was closing in and we wanted to visit Dogs Bay beach before that happened. 

The dazzling white sand beaches of Dogs Bay and Gurteen Bay are linked by a spit with a granite island at the seaward end. Also known as a tombolo – we last came across one of those on the Dingle peninsula in Kerry- this spit was formed by the chalky remains of ‘single-cell’ marine like mammals swept up from deeper water into the channel that once lay between the island and mainland. Now, along with shells ground down by the tides, it forms the two white sandy beaches – Dogs Bay and Gurteen Bay. 

It was on one of these beaches that Bob was metal detecting, whilst George and I walked the entire coast line around the island and along the two beaches. A 5 mile walk with breathtaking views on every turn. 

A local lady approached Bob and told him 3 years ago she’d lost a very valuable and precious Cartier diamond earring whilst walking back to her house close to the beach. Bob spent the next 3 hours looking for it, mostly near her house and garden, as he was pretty sure the sand would have moved the earring very deep on the beach and he’d be highly unlikely to find it if it was there. Unfortunately He didn’t find it and returned home exhausted but about 2 hours later the woman popped over to our campsite with a bottle of wine and chocolates for Bob for all his efforts, she was very grateful. 

We should’ve stayed another night here but we’d been recommended another site by many people that was equally nice and we’d be camping right on the beach. 

Suffice to say it was a huge disappointment we felt the site was overrated and overpriced. 

On our way there, we stopped off at a historical discovery point in a peat bog that had once been the site of Marconi Radio Station that had ince been the head quarters to send messages across the atlantic and houses huge power stations. It was also the crash site of Alcock and Browns first transatlantic flight. It was a very interesting and informative 3 mile walk, well thought out to show you via audio clips, visual panels and information boards, the history of the area and how it might have looked when it was fully operational. It was set in peat boglands which in itself is quite interesting to see. Digging up peat has not been banned in Ireland so it is still burnt as a fossil fuel. 

The wind and rain arrived and that night we felt the van being batted around whilst we were very close to a fast running sea causeway  – we left this site sharpish the next day looking for better weather as we headed into County Mayo. 

Look what I drummed up whilst we were getting beaten down by the rain and wind in our van!  I made my first cake, a chocolate and almond cake using the Omnia!  I proved you can bake a cake! Very simple and very tasty – just what you need when it’s cold, wet and wild outside.

Galway has been stunning and I almost feel we should come back another time as we are running out of good weather to make the best of it. It feels quite remote, large areas of bog land, huge mountain ranges, The Maumturks and Twelve Pins are all here, beautiful coastal  inlets and islets to visit and I expect far more beaches to explore. 

Most of the signage is in Gaelic, I hear it spoken in the shops as well as English. Everyone is still so friendly and interested in our journey and ready to offer help or tips of where to go. 

Galway hasn’t disappointed me and we will gladly come back.