The weather in Ireland isn’t for the faint of heart. We had our fingers crossed for at least a semi-reasonable day for our visit to the Cliffs of Moher. When we were leaving Galway to head out, the forecast was a bit of a flip of a coin on what we’d get. There was going to be wind (that was for sure) and on the drive, the clouds kept closing in to the point that visibility was almost nothing when we arrived. But a few minutes later, after we had ducked inside to put on ponchos for our hike around the cliffs, the clouds started a magical pulling away and while we were in danger of being blown off the cliffs and were pelted with rain, the view opened up and we were in awe.

A little rain and wind were not going to keep us from exploring. Maybe it was the weather and the slightly off-season timing of this visit, but there weren’t any crushing crowds and in many places it felt like we had stretches of the cliffs to ourselves to enjoy.

Even better for us, the weather kept continually improving with the rain stopping and the gale force winds subsiding to a nice strong and persistent breeze. We had gotten exceptionally lucky… over the course of about a half an hour we went from very poor visibility to a reasonably nice fall day in this part of the world. The clouds lifting let us look down into the town of Doolin where we’d stop later on for an early dinner.

This ended up being my favourite photo from all of our travels in Ireland. My wife, noted animal whisperer, approached this cow with an offering of grass to say hi. The expression on her face as the cow turned and walked away was priceless. I got a few strange looks as I watched this and laughed uncontrollably from a distance.

That was the only disappointment on this day. We walked along the cliffs and were absolutely taken by the lush green grass (coming from Saskatoon in October, we had forgotten that this colour of green existed in nature) and the violence of the waves against the cliffs. This setting was simply stunningly beautiful.

The weather during our visit improved so much that we could see off to Inisheer just out into the North Atlantic Ocean. As a Nova Scotian I never tire of gazing across any body of water. This day just kept getting better and better.

After walking out as far as we could, we turned to walk back along the cliffs and were both in a bit of awe at this view over the fields and cliffs, the sky and the ocean.

Look at these happy faces. Windblown, but happy faces. This was a remarkable once in a lifetime experience.

While we left the cliffs behind, the day trip wasn’t yet over. We stopped at McGann’s Pub in Doolin and I ordered the fish stew, brown bread, and a pint of Guinness. All delicious! This place was lovely and even had gluten free versions of this for my wife.

Sláinte from Doolin!

On the way back to Doolin as the sun set, there were still a few amazing views out over the water near Ballyryan where we pulled over for a few pictures and some more salt air, something I can never get enough of.

There was still a lot of winding roads along the coast back into Galway – the scenery on the last part of the drive was a lovely way to cap a pretty perfect day trip.