Sandpiper

Monday, July 04, 2016
Inishbofin, Connaught, Ireland
Where to start... Let's start at the beginning.

I closed my window at some point in the night, which was good because it was POURING rain in the morning . Oh joy. I woke at regular human time, forgetting that out here there's "island time" "boffin time" or basically, "would ya calm down and relax" time. Breakfast didn't start til 9 and it ended at 10, so I went back to bed for a while.

Breakfast was nice, just cereal or decreasing sizes of a Full Irish, but nice nonetheless. You can tell a lot about how a breakfast will be by whether they have real orange juice or not, and they had (but no bits) so good start, Dolphin Hotel! The other four people at breakfast were already chatting when I got down, and they were all doing the course too. The hotel people said they'd drive us up to the school at quarter to ten, so we were delighted, and off we went.

The school is cute. There's a big middle room, and two classrooms at each side. I don't know how the twelve kids are divided or what support education there is, but it's nice all the same. We signed up to our roll, so any inspectors that come out can confirm we totally did work out here. *serious face* We were also all handed a little notebook with a non-committal shrug: "They want ye to keep a reflective diary, if you don't mind, so there you go. Hmph."

The man in charge gave us a quick talk, and asked us to choose whether we wanted to do the high walk or the low walk, and we divided ourselves pretty evenly, which pleased everyone . It turns out that there were also two other classes going on - art with Gordon Darcy and creative writing with a lady I don't remember - but I was dressed for tough weather, and I had bought RAIN PANTS especially for this course, so I was going doing the HARD walk, dammit!

I actually keep notes on life in general, when I find stuff interesting, so I had always intended to write down stuff I wanted to look up later, just I was doing it on my phone, not a piece of unwaterproof paper with no pen. They actually gave these cool little magnifying glasses to some people, but I missed out, so hopefully I'll get one tomorrow. But they gave no pens. If that says anything about an acceptance of "reflective learning logs" from the kind of practical people who also say "Sure I don't see any harm in picking the odd flower. Don't the cows eat two thousand of them each day."

Our group was with a man whose family were the last kings of Inishark, and who was the kind of man you'd trust to safely lead you up Everest and back down, but who'd take no nonsense from anyone in the meantime. The second was a quiet ecologist man who talked intensely and intelligently about any plant he could get his hands on, then realised after a while that perhaps not everyone was as into moss as he was, and apologised so we could get back to walking. I AM into moss, it was very interesting. I wish I could pick up any plant or blade of grass in the bog and have as much information to hand as he does .

As the ecologist was showing us some sphagnum moss, he nearly stood on a ground nest in the bog, and pointed it out in the absent sort of way people point out less interesting stuff than the moss in their hands. There was an immediate division in the group of people I like and people I don't like. The ones I like 'oohed' and 'aahed' beside me; the ones I don't like all pushed passed everyone and nearly trampled the nest trying to find it. It was kind of disturbing.

There are no trees on the island. They were all chopped down years ago, and won't grow back because of the "salt wind"...? I dunno, I think you could try harder guys, seriously. But anyway, that means all the birds nest on the ground. Even the bushes are low. DON'T TRAMPLE BABY BIRDS IN A NEST ON THE GROUND! For god's sake. This is not about getting a photo. I LOVE taking photos, photos are the best. My phone died multiple times today because I took so many photos (and notes). Just common sense.

Anyway. On that walk we saw the remains of walls of Bronze Age farms, heard about research work the "deep pockets" of Notre Dame university is undertaking out on Inishark, saw what happens when blanket bog is dug down to the bottom, learned about 'turf cutter's mounds', and saw some of Ireland's own carnivorous plants! Called, innocently enough, 'sundew'. Also I got to use my rain pants, as mentioned . And literally every other piece of equipment I put in my bag. So hurray for prepared packing and solid investments. *thumbs up*

We stopped off for lunch at the Doonmore Hotel, which was about ten meters further down the road than I made it yesterday evening. We swamped the place and found out our lunch isn't covered in the course fee, but it was lovely chowder and bread and chips and salty goodness, so I'm not complaining. They also gave me napkins, because I had run out of tissues and my nose was running like crazy. I'll spoil the end of the story: the napkins were red, and my nose is red now too, and I'm not sure if it's from sun, wind or napkin dye.

Leo (the guy in charge) met everybody outside again after we'd eaten. The lazybones who'd been drawing or writing all morning had made it down to us, and now we only had two options: another high road, or another low road. I honestly thought there were only like four walking loops on this island - I mean official ones, you can walk anywhere you want if you trust the sheep and the donkeys and the goats - but hey, what do I know .

Of course I took the second high road, because it was harder and it included the blowhole. Blowholes!!! Secondary school geography coming to life! Count me in!

We were able to work out eventually that the man leading us was a marine biologist, and his geologist son was also guiding us, perhaps in an unofficial capacity because he's not on the course brochure. It's a very nice brochure, but it's possibly the only "official" thing about this course. I'm not being sarcastic about anything here, in case you think I am. Unofficial secondary school geography trails are my thing, man!

So the marine biologist also loves grass. He says it's very important. And I listened to him for the first three grass types (cocksfoot, Yorkshire fog, crested dogs tail) and the figwort, but then we started talking about the formation of schist, and how can you not listen to schist talk? Also, having a guy who stops to tell you (or maybe himself) about every blade of grass on a tree-less island can make for pretty slow walking . Especially if you've forgotten to go to the toilet at lunchtime.

The blowhole was bigger than I expected. First there was a sort of cave, then a big long rectangular hole in the ground above the cave, then a little bridge of land, and then the Atlantic Ocean, and what were possibly cormorants (the wind was making my eyes water and my camera shake, so it's hard to tell.)

We went into the cave-ish bit first, to look at the tracks limpets had made on the green algae on rocks while the tide was in. It's fascinating to think that limpets move around like that, and you can see it in their tracks. One lady asked "Can they move rocks?" and the guy kind of frowned and replied "...no...they're only very small." So the lady clarified "no, I mean can they move from one rock TO another rock." and we all laughed and, honestly I'm still laughing at these batty scientists and how they love this island.

At that point I was tired of looking at all the grass, but I didn't want to turn back, so I headed off by myself to find the "sea erratics". They're big rocks in the sea. They're pointy. I'd left both the marine biologist and the geologist behind, so I know no more. It was SO. FREAKING. WINDY. This is why it's probably not napkin dye on my nose. My phone also started acting up at this point, and the group ended up catching back up with me.

We saw a dead porpoise on the beach . We had literally crossed the beach and been about to go, when the dad looked back at the son, and since the wind was so loud, they must have communicated with beards or something, but the dad jumped excitedly and ran off: "Oh look! He's found a dead thing!" It was a porpoise because of the spatula-like teeth. Porpoises are our smallest species of whale. Dolphins are mean and attack them. We don't know how it died.

DUDE. I was saturated with information and sea salt wind. I had to go.

And then the sun came out, and I could take my rain pants off, and I passed a bike on the ground that the wind was actually cycling itself, and I found an island clone of my dad's tractor, and then! Salvation! I had heard the shop closed at 4pm and it was now after 5, but GUESS WHAT. The Ballygowan Brigade saves the day! It was still open.

They were out of all fizzy drinks except 7up, and all chocolate bars except curly-wurlys and fudges, but that all worked in my favour. I ate a dinners-worth in chocolate, nuts, sesame sticks and love heart sweets on the rest of the walk back, and I finally made it back to my room.

I took off all the wet and sweaty things, cleaned my glasses (the sweetest relief of all), and had a shower. Then I found a pen and wrote my phone notes into the notebook because if there's a prize for notebooks, I WANT IT . I have words like 'rhizobacteria', 'ombrotrophic' and 'preferential erosion' in there! And I know what they mean too! GO ON, ASK ME!!!!!

I debated whether I'd manage to keep this blog too at all, because I was so tired that I didn't even have energy or inclination to go for food this evening (plus: chocolate). But it's a different sort of diary of the trip, and I'm always up for a battle against Apple, even if it's only to insist on an entry full of words Apple doesn't think are real. Screw you, iPad. And whatever sort of mockery of English you use that deletes entire paragraphs on me for no reason and doesn't know what Ballygowan, curly-wurlys or rhizobacteria are!!!!!

OH, sandpipers. They were like the only bird I forgot to mention, of course. Well the corncrake is very quiet today, but being on so many beaches, the sound of the day was definitely the little peep of the sandpiper. Before I got tired of the marine biologist's enthusiasm, he called it "the most ethereal, lonely sound in the world".

Comments

Una
2016-07-10

Maybe the wind prevented you hearing the corncrake!!

2025-02-10

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