Day 9 – Galway/Salthill

We got to sleep in until 8 this morning.

After breakfast, it was time to explore Galway during the day.

 

We headed into the City Centre and found an internet café to fire off a quick email to the folks at home.

We accomplished a bit of site seeing and shopping before getting on the road around 11:30 am for the hour trip to Flowerhill Equestrian Center.

Along the way, we grabbed a bite of lunch at Maggie May’s (chicken a la cream and fish and chips), found another great church ruin, and MORE horses to pet.

 



Driving up to Flowerhill…Erin was in XC (cross country) heaven. They had had a 1* event the weekend before so all the pretty jumps and galloping lanes were still up. Oliver (the owner) said they had 250+ horses in the event.

The place was gorgeous!

Oliver’s grandfather bought the land (250 acres) in the 1920’s and they originally farmed cows and sheep.  Ten years ago Oliver decided to make the switch to horses.  He  said it was probably less money but better work with the benefits of getting to meet people and take time in the winter for hunts.
Erin had asked to do the pub ride ‘plus’ hoping to at least jump a couple of cross country jumps.

It turned out that Erin got a mini XC school, jumping 25+ fences including two baby water jumps and two jumping chutes with 7-10 jumps in them.  Most of the fences were BN level (~2’6”) but a couple were bigger and one log oxer in one of the jumping chutes was huge.  Erin’s horse (Furty) was a big Irish draft type…a little sticky and needed some encouragement to jump - but once Erin relaxed and he figured out she was going to kick him over the fence anyway, he jumped nicely…very smooth over the fences, good spots, and quite comfortable to ride.

Ted, the barn ‘help’ and exerciser lead Erin over most of the jumps, until he decided she could jump on her own just fine.

John spent the time trail riding Oliver with a little trotting thrown in cause, well, just to keep John’s nether regions alert.

Another rider went with us and she did a great job coaching Erin over the first few (and prodding her when she got a bit nervous about the jumping chutes).

After Erin finished her XC riding, we took a nice leisurely ride out to McDonach’s pub for a pint (1/2 pint for Erin) before a nice leisurely ride back to the stables. 
We spent a little cool down time with Oliver and a couple other guys on the beautiful stone patio outside the manor house enjoying coffee/soda and shooting the breeze (which translates into a bunch of horse talk that John only understands about half of).

Another barn help guy was there, and a Scottish man who was checking the place out before his wife and he moved their two horses to the facility.  The house was an enormous old manor home.

Our trip back to Galway was nice…and horrible.  The hour drive back to town was beautiful and relaxed…but we hit town at rush hour and it took another hour just to get across town (normally a less then 10 minute trek).

As we passed the bay, we noticed a huge flock of swans.

 

We stopped for pictures and were amazed at the sheer numbers and how close you could get to them.

After a nap and a shower, Erin watched an equestrian event (Irish 3* competition that had been held the week before) on the tv (unlike America, they actually have horse stuff on tv) and then we headed back into town.

Found a cute little gourmet pizza and burger joint named Mustard and had a light dinner (a nice oil/sundried tomato spread crust for an app and a chorizo & carmelized red onion pizza for the meal).  Our waitress was a college aged girl from Canada who came to Ireland a month ago to live/work for up to a year just cause it seemed like a cool thing to do.

 After dinner, we made our way to The Spanish Arch to have a couple of pints and watch a half-Irish half-Spanish band (2 members from each country) named Alale that played original tunes in addition to more traditional Irish and Spanish songs.

Very heavy on the wind instruments – tin flute, flute, Irish pipes, bag pipes, and several other unidentifiable wind instruments – but with a good percussionist and guitarist.

We bought a CD because they were just that good.

 

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