Doolin Cave

Today was sunny and gorgeous so we did a lot of walking. First we set out for the Doolin cave roughly 1 km from our hostel. Discovered that Doolin is downhill from the surrounding towns. As soon as we mounted the hill we saw the cliffs, a lot of blue that was the ocean and just how much of Doolin is grazing land for cows. I realized Eden's strange obsession with cows today when she stopped to take pictures every time we saw one. I agree that they are noble and fascinating animals but hers was bordering on fanaticism. 

The caves were frickin awesome. Our guide (younger than me) gave us a detailed account of the two men who were part of an expedition to map out all the caves in the area 60 years ago and how they broke off from their group and came across a sinkhole and underground stream that lead to this huge cavern with the world's heaviest stalactite (weighing in at 2 tons) and Europe's largest. 

It is called "the great stalactite" on all the signs advertising it and also the giant squid, because apparently it looks like a giant squid with all it's various drip formations. The two men who found it had only a 2 by 3 foot crawlspace through which to enter the cave and it took them over two hours to reach the cavern. They entered knowing that if there was any danger or nothing to be found they would have to crawl out backwards because they didn't have any space to turn around. 

"The great stalactite" doesn't look so commanding in the pictures because its against the darkness of the cave but when our guide dramatically turned on all the lights at once (to recreate the scene of the men who had turned off their gas-powered head lamps up to this point to save fuel for the trek back) it was pretty incredible. Oh, there were also fossils of coral and other sea life in the walls. The burren, glacial valley nearby and caves are all a geologist's paradise and have helped scientists to understand a lot of Ireland's pre-history (go figure, it was once tropical.) 

Our guide ended the tour by saying that there was still another three miles of unexplored caves that researchers haven't been able to explore because the crawl space is not large enough. They know how much space is left unexplored by a cool trick of putting a small amount of radioactive substance (not enough to be harmful to the ecosystem) in the stream that they then trace when it comes out the other end in the ocean. 

We then took in more of the cows and beautiful countryside (you can see for miles; all green hills and rock walls) on our way to a castle up the road. Unfortunately when we arrived we found the area marked as private property so that was as close as we got to an Irish castle. 

Afterwards, a short nap, then live music, dinner and several really persistent irish men at o'connors pub. Videos of the musicians available for showing later in person : ) It was very crowded but I recognized a lot of the tunes being played. An old man sang Molly Mallone, On the Rocky Road to Dublin and several others I am familiar with but don't know the names of. The stars on the walk back were also lovely.