(D) Yesterday we went out for breakfast in town at Ring's Bistro - nice breakfast but an especially great cup of coffee I have to say! The rest of the day we had a completely lazy day at "home", watching trash TV and generally slobbing about.... it was thoroughly lovely and I think it's important within a holiday to actually take some time out from the rushing around sometimes and just vege out and recharge your batteries..... and it had absolutely NOTHING to do with our night out at Matt Malloy's the night before!

Today we were ready to venture out again and had a thoroughly lovely day driving up to Achill Island. Once again we were very lucky with the weather, the sun was shining brightly and there wasn't even much wind so it was crisp out but not cold. We found our way there without too much trouble, well we did take a slight detour but it ended up being a lovely route so we are sticking with the story that we planned it all along.

Liane had done some research (no big surprise there!) and said that Keem Beach sounded worth a visit so we followed the road until we arrived. To get there you had to hug a cliff all the way up a rather steep, and very narrow, road. It was tarred and had a guard rail (most of the way) but it was rather a toe tingling adventure none the less. I kept suggesting to Liane that she drive further over - I think I had the worst "view" being closer to the edge.... well that and the fact I'm a total and utter chicken with things like that. The beach was beautiful, completely deserted of course, though we noticed a lifeguard hut there and it's such a lovely spot I would assume in summer it's quite popular - if people could handle the drive there anyway! We were absolutely thrilled we came at this time of year though so we didn't meet any cars coming the other way on that road.

The funny thing was when we stopped at a pub for coffees, and a loo break, we got talking to the lady publican and a couple of locals and they were all visibly surprised and impressed that we'd made it there. They said "fair play to you!" and commented that some locals won't even go up that road which we thought was hilarious. The other really interesting thing they told us was that we really picked the right day as apparently yesterday was incredibly cold and windy - so we lucked out yet again with the weather which is wonderful!

Tomorrow we leave Westport and head back to Dublin for a night before flying to Venice..... yay Italy here we come!

(L) With 2 days left we had originally planned one day trip to Achill and one to Ceide Fields but after having a fun night out at Matt Molloys we were a little tired and so decided what we really needed was a day off.... we had after all been flat out since we'd left home on the 9th November! 

We did venture out long enough to have breakfast at a place we had discovered the day before and then went straight home to bed! After a lazy day we went out for dinner at The Wyatt Hotel - it was very nice and only €37.65 for our meals and a drink each. I didn't even take one photo the entire day!!

Our last full day in Westport we decided to head out to Achill Island because it's only around an hours drive, I would love to have gone further north but unfortunately we can't do everything and see everywhere.

We had both gone to bed around 9.30 so were awake by 5.30 but as it doesn't get light until nearly 8 am we just hung around until it was time to head out for the day. Westport doesn't seem to get busy with traffic until nearly lunchtime so was great to get out before there was too many cars about.... just had to scrape the ice off the windows first!!

Achill Island is a great day out from Westport and I'd imagine in summer there would be way more happening than at this time of year. We drove up to Keem Bay and OMG the road just clings precariously to the side of the mountain but the views are spectacular and the beach is just gorgeous. All the way up I was driving extremely carefully, slowly and in the middle of the road but poor Deb was on the cliff side and she was groaning in horror and continually telling me to "move over" - I was just laughing hysterically at her terror, which is pretty bad but hey... sorry!!

On the way back from Keem we both wanted to use the toilet but couldn't find anything open.... even the public toilets were locked up for the winter!

We did eventually find McLoughlins Pub right at the bridge and stopped for coffee. The very friendly and talkative female publican gave us coffee with a couple of bickies each and only charged us €3!! 

From here we went back to Westport with a quick stop in Newport. We discovered someone had stolen our car park right outside the front door so we had to go park in the SupaValue car park, we're leaving in the morning so don't want to have to cart our luggage too far..... not happy Jan!!

Off to the pub for lunch and back to do some washing and get the blog all up to date..... a few hours later I looked out the window and saw a spare car park so we rushed out to move the car, Deb standing in the empty spot to guard it whilst I ran down to the car park to drive up closer to home!! 

Just have to get the bags all packed up now!