Ireland #19 Westport then off to Achille Island

Westport is a lovely little town with a population
of around 5500.
We arrived right at dinner time and we were
ready for a nice meal.
Of course, we had no idea where we'd eat, so we took
a walk around and came upon
The West Bar
This sign was on the out side and the menu looked good
(they had fish and chips)
so that's where we ate.

As it turns out The West Bar is not only the
All Ireland Chowder Cook Off Winner
for 2012 and 2013
They were also named the
Worlds Best Seafood Chowder
at the World Competition in
Newport, Rhode Island in 2014.
Now who wouldn't want to try the
best chowder in the world?
Unfortunately, I am allergic to shellfish,
so I couldn't give it a try, although I would
have loved to.

4 of the Celtic Adventurers ordered the 

Seafood Bake.

This dish looked so good!

It was their famous chowder covered with 

Gruyere cheese and herbed bread crumbs, then baked

to a beautiful brown on top.

The other 2 of us had the fish and chips.

Sorry I didn't get a picture before I ate most of it.

Guess you can tell that it was pretty darn tasty.

Still not my top pick, but pretty close.

I love that they served it on the paper to mimic 

the traditional newspaper wrapping.

While we were having our dinner,there were a group

of young men at the next table, they all ordered steaks

which made our mouths water.

More about that in my next post.

After dinner we had a little walk around town.

I love this little town square with the clock tower

and the phone box.

I do wish I had taken more pictures in Westport.

The Carrowbeg River runs right through the

town, the bridges and walks are beautifully decorated with

flower boxes.

Westport has been named Ireland's Tidiest Town a few times.

Next time, I'll get pictures.

That night we stayed at a lovely B & B.

The Dun Mhurie B & B is high on our list of favorites.

PJ, the proprietor, visited with us a bit that evening.

PJ was a very personable and funny man, we 

enjoyed him very much.

In the morning, we were served a very nice breakfast,

then were off for more adventures. 

Off to Achill Island.

We didn't take the typical tourist routes and

were so glad that we didn't.

Not an uncommon sight in Ireland, 

sheep in the road or by the side of the roads.

Had to get a picture or two of them.

(well...... maybe more than one or two)

Although sheep grazing along the roads and in the 

fields isn't so uncommon, to us this sight was a little 

different.

These sheep were just roaming around,

not so odd you say?

Not until I tell you that it was the golf coarse that

they were grazing on.  

I didn't get a picture with the golfers, but they were there,

walking along, golfing with the sheep.

Just another day at the links.

Hope the poor sheep don't get hit with too many golf balls!

We kept driving along the roads, not knowing what we'd find.

When suddenly we were in awe.

There was the most gorgeous bay we had seen.

The water was clear, blue and turquoise.

We had come upon Keem Bay and it was incredible!

Check out that water, you can see right to the bottom,

so clear and beautiful!

Of course I had to have a selfie with this

beautiful bay in the background!

The Celtic Adventurers all out of the car to 

take pictures and admire the beautiful view.

And looking out to sea in the other direction.

When we drove down to go to the beach, this is

the gorgeous scene we saw.

Everything about this beach was beautiful.

We hit upon it at the perfect time,

nice skies, beautiful sunshine,

fairly warm temps.

Look at the way the mountain just rises up out of the beach.

Incredible!

I have a panoramic feature on my camera

although it didn't stitch seamlessly, I still love how my 

panoramics turned out.

The beach wasn't huge, but it was a pretty good size

and there weren't many people there.

So beautiful!  Those clouds were just amazing!

The panoramic feature worked great vertically.

I love this picture of the shoreline.

And the rocks and hillside.

Looking out to sea.

As I walked along the beach I kept my eyes open

for interesting rocks to take home.

The first one I found caught my eye, because it was 

light in color with the brown streak.

Then a really gorgeous one caught my eye.

The road we took from the clifftop was constructed in 1960.

The road crosses a local geological boundary, 

exposing a seam of amethyst quartz.

Folklore says that amethyst has many properties,

it is said to be a love charm, gives protection against 

thieves and drunkenness and is a sleep aide.

Jane read up on the bay, her reading said that 

not many find amethyst these days and those that

find it are very lucky indeed.

Guess I'm one of the lucky ones!

This is one rock that won't be going into the garden.

It is by far my favorite rock from this trip.

Then we were off to see what we could see.

We found more beautiful beaches

We found a lovely place to have a lunch of 

cheese and crackers and other goodies.

Another beautiful setting.

We stopped to take some pictures along the way

and Dave struck up a conversation with a local

guy who was out running.

We had passed him, then he passed us a couple times,

Dave made a comment about it and the runner stopped

to talk to Dave.

He said there were some places that we could go

that were off the beaten path.

WAY off the beaten path!

We were glad we took his direction as we did see some

beautiful sights, a lot of sheep for Jane and Roxie to take pictures of,

some gorgeous cliffs and some great peat bogs. 

More about those in my next post.

I'll leave you today with this picture of the beautiful cliffs that we found

when we took direction from a local.

The people in Ireland are so friendly and helpful!

If you just take the chance to talk to them,

they will tell you all about the best places to go,

places that the tour buses don't get to.

Maybe because they don't know about them,

or maybe because there is no possible way they 

could drive the roads to get there as many of

them were basically dirt roads or mere paths.

Next post, I'll tell you about those 

peat bogs and about the steak dinners.

Thanks for coming by to share my Ireland adventure!