Well, wow. How to even try to explain Valentia Island...bitter sweet? That might be accurate. Since we didn't have access to a computer while we were there, it was very hard to make posts, Mimi did manage to get one in, but that was only the very beginning of day 2 and things really changed after that. So much happened its somewhat of a blur but it was basically crazy prep for a big party Anthea was throwing as her festival kick off the whole first day of work, so we thought it normal not to see a garden or anything of the sort at first since she needed lots of help. The party turned out to be awesome ("like a million hotdogs"-as Allen the chef would say) and we met and talked with a lot of very hilarious drunk Irish folk and ended it by dancing our asses off to house music, really blowing the minds of many people I'm sure. The next day we missed majority of the clean up-because no one was there at 10:30 so we went to go eat amazing pancakes at the only other coffee shop- but got sent right to the kitchen for dish duty...by this point we had already eaten atleast 2 goat cheese sandwiches, since it was the only thing on the menu we could eat and Anthea had given us two days of "tomorrows" in reference to our groceries. The next day was Sunday so we assumed there was no work because you usually have off on Sunday for WWOOF so we headed over to Cahirciveen by ferry and explore a little. By this point we were becoming a bit weary of the whole situation and tried to reach out to some new farms and look for people who were really trying to live sustainably. We went in Monday to try to talk to her about some food and seeing the polytunnel and arrived at about the same time. As soon as we saw her she was looking ready to send us on some cafe duty so we quickly ring in "So we're heading to the polytunnel today?" she explained that she wouldn't be able to take us and that she was very busy and disorganized and sorry and yeah yeah blah, very fast talking and the like. At this point I couldn't hold back and longer and said something like "well, ya know we signed up for WWOOF that stands for working on organic farms or gardens, and we really didnt expect to be working in a cafe..." so she says we didn't have to work today and she would take us to the tunnel tomorrow. I think she actually got the message then. We took the first half of the day to email lots of people and find an escape route off of Valentia. Probably up to 4 goat cheese sandwiches by now. The second half was absolutely incredible. We went on a 4 hour, around 9 or 10 mile hike and saw tons of extremely surreal scenes. First we walked up the side of a mountain to a huge slate quarry and grotto which was a hugeeeee hole in the side of the mountain that had water running down. Next we walked further up the mountain and made our way to signs that pointed us to Geokaun Mountain and Fogher Cliffs, which is Valentia's tallest mountain. It was pretty steep but well worth the hike. Definitely goes down as the most beautiful scene I have ever seen. Stunning 360 view of the neighboring islands, the skelligs and of course the mighty Atlantic. We were both in awe. There were also sheep everywhere with tiny babes follwing. We made it home right before the pub was closing and ate a lovely meal, drank some cider by the water and watched a beautiful sunset.
We checked out email and a few people had responded! We figured it was because we saw all Valentia had to offer us and it was now time to leave. One guy Mike said he empathized and had two french wwoofers, but had an extra room, left us his number and told us to call him and we could work something out. We went to sleep grateful and hopeful. We awoke this morning and pretty much decided that if we could get a hold of Mike, we would bust a QUICK move right off that island. AND WE DID, pretty quickkk.
We called and Mike said he could pick us up in Kenmare today and everything seemed great! So we went home, packed up all our stuff in a half hour and ran to the ferry- the apparent quick way, says Mimi, which was climbing over a small bush/hill with all of our luggage, and through the grass. Good for a laugh, she is. We ended up hitching a ride from Anna, who worked for Anthea, which we thought perfect and hilarious, to our bus in Caherciveen. They all must have known it was coming, as she wasn't too surprised to see us leaving.
So two buses later we met Mike! He saw us come right off the bus since we were so brightly dressed and he took us over to the veggie cafe to grab a drink and some fig pie! Then right to the grocery store. This is how wwoof is supposed to be! This night has been a huge relief. We are extremely grateful and ready to work in the gardens! I am tired of typing and we're going to go get a beer in town!
All is well :) Namaste!
Chelsey
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