I’m not sure that I would ever call what we did a “moderate hike”, but that is the description I was given when I signed up for this hike. Before I go too far, let me just say that is really wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t the easiest hike either.
To start off our day, we went to Kyle
more Abbey. Kylemore Abbey has had many uses over the years. It was an personal residence, a refuge, and most recently, a school for girls. It was beautiful, and was NOT part of the moderate hike. We barely did any walking at this part of the day.
After Kylemore, we went to Diamond Hill. Which was basically a mountain. This is where our “moderate hike” took place. It was beautiful. It was also slightly misting, and very very windy. The higher we got, the more windy it was. At one point, there was a gust of wind so strong it knocked me over. I don’t think I have ever felt wind that strong before. It was kinda scary actually. But then we got to a spot that was more sheltered, and I decided to continue going with the rest of the group. We didn’t make it to the very top, because of the wind and the mist 
(we actually obeyed the warning sign), but we were very close. I’ve heard that you can normally see quite far from where we were, but at that point we were literally inside of a cloud. It was unfortunate we couldn’t see any farther, but it was so cool that we were high enough to be in a cloud! We had to be 
very careful on the way down, because some of the rocks on the path were slippery, and it was still really windy. Though it was a bit more intense of a hike than I had expected, it was still lots of fun, and completely worth it.
Following our hike, we went to the town of Clifden and had lunch. It was quite nice, we had our own private room for the group, and it was reasonably priced too. I had a wonderful ham and cheese sandwich that was toasted and everything I wanted after that hike. There were also like three types of potatoes with my lunch. There were crisps (chips), potato salad and chips (fries).
There was one more stop before we headed back to Galway. We went to Abbyglenn castle. It was a very old castle that was in the middle of a farm, and falling apart. Even though it was falling apart, it was still beautiful.
This was a wonderful day. Exhausting, but wonderful. I can’t wait to have more adventures in Ireland!
Angela Keller 