Day 3

Mom wanted to see a picture of the towns we visited. This is Sligo at 9pm. Odd how bright it is.

The path up Knocknarea, (I cant get these pictures to rotate correctly on i-photo)

View from the hike. The Atlantic ocean is hardly visable from beyond the house.

cows grazing along the route up the mtn. notice the thick fog.

An example of our limited visability 

Soaking wet but happy, halfway up Knocknarea.

View of Knocknerea once we fog had lifted. We climbed a sand dune to get a better look. 

Surfers in the Atlantic, or as I call them "the crazys" Compare that beach to the gulf...

Beautiful tombstones we found at St. Anne's church. Andrew was a little weirded out that i wanted to check out a graveyard. 

The seaweed baths. You can order their products online. 

Sorry for the delay, we didnt have internet for the past few days. Although we were staying a pretty nice places, for whatever reason, their internet wasnt working or we just didnt have time to mess with it. Anyways, lets continue...

Andrew won. So, the decision was to climb Knocknarea on saturday morning. Sligo was a beautiful county and town, and since we were having such nice weather, and the fact andrew refused the existence of horses altogether, I agreed. However, we quickly discovered that on this particular morning, the weather was not so agreeable. Despite the fact that we couldnt even see the mountain from the car park, we embarked. The first 10 minutes were fantastic, the scenery was simply breathtaking and the rain and wind were minor. However, about half way up, things started getting hairy. First, andrew realized his rain resistant parka was not actually resistant at all, and was soaking wet. Mine was still holding up, but the wind was picking up so violently, I couldnt feel my ears. Then we saw it. About 20 yards ahead, blocking out path was the sheep. Normally a sheep would not keep up from continuing, but this one was quite different. We called it the killer sheep. It starred us down with a very evil look and would not move out of the path. At that point we were already exhausted, drenched, freezing, and had no visability of the peak. So, the killer sheep was the final straw and we decided to abandon this hike. It was probably the best decision, bc frankly, i did not want to get any closer to that sheep and i really wanted to regain feeling in my ears. So we didnt make it up Knocknarea to see Queen Maeve's tomb, but we felt good about the attempted hike. 

To make us feel even better and to simply relax from the hike, we decided to partake in a seaweed bath. Andrew remembered hearing about these baths, and luckily they are located in the town next to Sligo called Strandhill.  Voya Baths is located right off the Atlantic coast, so not only are the views amazing, the treatments are quite unique. Although we both were apprehensive, it was a very cool experience. You have your own room with a steam shower and a free standing bathtub already filled with a bucket of fresh seaweed. They harvest it themselves from the coast right outside the shops doors. So, you steam first to open the pours, and then you get into the hot slimy seaweed bath. It sounds gross, and it kind of was. But, eventually you get use to it and relax. The seaweed is super hydrating, and after 50 minutes, you feel like a new person. 

After the bath, we regrouped, watched some surfers along the coast, and headed out of county sligo, and into county mayo. This whole trip we have stayed along the coast, so the views have been amazing. We drove all the way down to the town of Westport and called it a night.