UK Adventure Part 2: The Detour that Almost Cost Us Our Flight

Yes, Bobby and I almost missed our flight out of Ireland. We had to drive literally across the entire country to get to the airport, Bobby squeezing along the tiny roads and me navigating with downloaded Google Maps. It was partly my fault that we were running late, but it was mostly the fault of the Irish road signs.

To explain how this race across the island came to be, let’s go back to where we left off the story last week (see here if you missed Part 1 of the UK adventure).

So, when Bobby and I initially decided to go to Ireland, we had to choose, out of a whole country of options, where to spend our time. You’d think we might choose based on main tourist attractions: the Blarney Stone, Giant’s Causeway, the Cliffs of Moher. But no, we chose based on a google search for hostels. When Bobby was looking, the old-school website of the Aille River Hostel popped up, and Bobby fell in love. This tiny hostel is located in the tiny coastal town of Doolin, which is conveniently next to the Cliffs of Moher. When we dug into the area a little more, we discovered that this village, population 500, is also the traditional music capital of Ireland. Okay, that was cool, if a little unexpected. We decided to give it a shot.

And it totally paid off! It was every bit as awesome as we’d hoped. If you ever go to Doolin, 10 out of 10 recommend staying at the Aille River Hostel. It was quaint, with a cute little breakfast nook and congregating space, camping out back, and wooden chairs on the lawn to watch the river go by outside. We shared a small room with four other people, bunk beds all round, but it was clean and everyone was friendly (let the record reflect that’s way easier to talk to people at hostels if I’m with someone rather than alone—see my last post for why that’s relevant).

When we got in our first evening, we ventured out to Gus O’Connor’s Pub. It had the best atmosphere—warm and homey, with thick wooden tables and dozens of posters on the walls for the same annual event stretching back quite a ways (I can’t for the life of me remember what event, but probably a music festival). Also, it had the most heavenly sticky toffee pudding I’ve ever tasted. We were tucked away in a corner, away from the main area where people were playing and singing their traditional Irish songs, but we could hear them well enough. It’s hard to describe how nice it felt to be somewhere warm, with a full belly, music in the background. It was like the world got recolored in the best way possible. We tried the other two pubs in town on subsequent nights in Doolin, but nothing beat that first experience. If you want to get a little bit of the feeling that was there that night, here’s some video evidence.

But we didn’t only enjoy the small-town aspects of Doolin. It was by the Cliffs of Moher, giant sea cliffs made famous by movies like The Princess Bride and Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince, and we weren’t going to miss them. We took the classic pictures, pretended to fall a cliff, and dodged dozens people along the path—all the normal things (that make me freak out when I think about how many people there were close together). And since we were conveniently located nearby, we also took an evening stroll along a deserted stretch of the cliffs. It was peaceful and beautiful and made the cliffs feel more personal and less like a checkbox location you just take pictures at to prove you were there.

But hey, I know I promised you some drama at the start of this post—the epic chase across the country to make our plane in time. So let’s get to that.

Delicious homemade breakfast

Our last morning in Ireland, we had breakfast at our hostel—eggs and bread that we bought from the hostel owner and prepared ourselves (I suggest you do the same if you’re ever there)—and then we headed out. Because we had some hours before we needed to be at the airport, I wanted to go to the Burren Perfumery, which was theoretically both only 30 minutes away from Doolin and not too far out of our way. I didn’t have any particular reason for wanting to go—it just came up on a Google search of “things to do near Doolin” (yes, Google searches dictate all of our travel decisions). On the way, we drove up the coast because the Wild Atlantic Way is also a thing on Google, and why not? We found the Burren Walk and explored the rocky formations there. All was fine and dandy.

The Burren Walk

But then we realized time was passing and we didn’t seem to be getting closer to the Perfumery. We were following the Google Map directions and we kept seeing signs for it, but the signs kept saying that it was only X kilometers away, and then we’d get to another sign that said the same thing but with a different distance. What the . . . eventually we realized that the signs were marking distance to the next turn, not to the Perfumery itself. Also, our surroundings kept getting more remote, and the road kept getting narrower (and Irish roads are already pretty dang narrow!) until eventually we were creeping along in the middle of a field with tall plants brushing our car on either side and absolutely no way for anyone to try to pass (should anyone else be out in the middle of nowhere). The drive had already taken longer than expected, Bobby’s nerves were fried from the stressful driving conditions, and at that point, we were questioning whether we’d even make it to the Perfumery before we’d have to turn around to get back to the airport in time.

But we’d come so far, so we decided to keep going a little longer. Then we came to a more promising sign. And then the road opened up. And then, down a little hill, the Perfumery itself finally emerged.

To be honest, Bobby and I were both kind of stressed by then, but we’d made the trek out there, so we determined we’d better enjoy it—quickly—before we went back. And it was nice enough (not worth the stress, though, unless you’re really into perfume). We watched a short film about how the perfume is made, toured the gardens where they grow the plants to get their scents, and picked up a scone from the gift shop (Bobby still talks about that scone, so maybe it’s worth it for the scones, too).

Then we headed out, rushing a bit. There was just enough time to make our flight, but we were cutting it close. We got hungry, but we couldn’t afford the time to stop for lunch. I kept the tunes going to distract us, but I couldn’t help looking at the clock more often than was healthy. I was also navigating—not one of my more highly honed skills—and I had to force myself to be even more careful than normal. We couldn’t afford delays! Which is of course why, just as we were getting close to the airport car drop-off, the directions confused me, I panicked, and we took a wrong turn and found ourselves not going the right direction at all. Man, Irish road directions are the worst. We had to pull over so Bobby could look at the directions and figure out how to get us back on track. Then we had to wait for the car to get inspected upon drop off—another delay—and then finally, hungry and hassled, we got to the airport, rushed through security, and made it to our gate with minutes to spare.

And then we sat in the terminal for the next hour. Gotta love delayed flights.

That concludes UK Adventure Part 2! Next stop: Manchester. Check back next week for the 9-minute drive that turned into an hour thanks to Google Maps.

The rainbow walk we found in the Ireland Airport