Kathleen, Queen of the Desert

Originally written for Westminster College’s Travel writing class, Fall 2006

I had our 25th wedding anniversary all planned out. Tom and I, our three sons plus a girlfriend, would head off to Ireland for two weeks, rent a van, shop, research our family tree, visit megalithic dolmens and the Cliffs of Moher, eat big Irish breakfasts . . . “. . . and go caving,” said Tom.

I didn’t want to do a watery cave. I had almost drowned in one 24 years ago. So I made two demands: “Put me in a dry cave, and don’t leave me.” But there I was, hundreds of feet beneath Ireland, in stiff overalls, sloshing through two feet of cold water with Adrian, our slightly askew Irish guide. And Tom and our sons had disappeared with Adrian’s map.
We had found Adrian through our hosts at the Doolin Activity Lodge, where the six of us were staying on the last leg of our trip. Doolin is a village of 200 people on the western coast of County Clare, the Republic of Ireland’s least-developed county. Irish writer Sean O’Faolain calls Clare “a shaggy-dressed, hairy-faced, dark-eyed, rough faced man of the road.” Known for its wild berry jams and traditional music, Doolin also runs summer ferries to the Aran Islands. Shopping for Aran sweaters and sipping hot tea back at the lodge was starting to look like a better option as I watched Adrian drive up to meet us in the steady drizzle.

Shaking hands with all of us, he looked like a character out of Lord of the Rings. Not an orc or a Hobbit, Adrian was more of a wizard with wild gray hair, bad teeth, and a certain glint. I’ve been around a lot of cavers, and they’re not entirely normal. Eggs and beer for breakfast, cast-off Army-Navy gear, minimal personal hygiene, and a psychopathic love of mud suggest why spelunkers hover only at the edges of civilization. I doubted Irish cavers were any different. Now, as we followed Adrian’s truck, civilization seemed to be slipping even farther away.

We were entering the burren (“place of rock”), western Ireland’s fantastical limestone karst. The burren is a treeless, rocky moor that paves most of County Clare. Irish essayist Susan Cahill called it “a sci-fi Metallica wasteland.” You walk the rolling landscape among ridges that protrude like the vertebrae of buried creatures. The sharp rock will slice your hands if you stumble. Neolithic drystone walls delineate old sheep pastures.
Leaning into his truck, the wizard dragged out some lumpy duffels and dumped out overalls, boots, gloves, battery packs, and helmets. “You’re all adults, “Adrian said. You can pick out your own gear.” He then gave us a lecture on hydrology. Fluctuating water makes burren caves dangerous, especially during the rainy season, but the recent dry spell and today’s weather forecast guaranteed us predictable levels. We then trudged off to the mouth of “PollnaGollum,” the longest cave in Ireland. “Gollum?” I said. “Like in Lord of the Rings?” The wizard shrugged.
PollnaGollum’s serpentine passageways are my favorite kind of caving. You can walk standing up, brace yourself against walls, only occasionally stoop or crawl, and confidently follow the river seams. Once the water in my boots warmed up, I comfortably sloshed behind Adrian. All was going well until I heard what sounded like somebody dumping out buckets of rocks.
The waterfall was deafening. We’d reached a “skylight,” where a section of cave had collapsed and water was pouring in. The wizard looked up at the cascade. “It’s more water than I thought,” he said simply. “I thought you said this was a dry cave,” I said. “This is a dry cave,” he said. “If it were a wet cave, we’d need diving gear.”
We stopped to sit on some rocks, waiting for Tom and the boys who were now fifteen minutes late for our rendezvous. The water in my boots was cooling, and I was starting to shiver. The wizard dug out some Mars Bars from his pack. We turned off our headlamps and ate our candy, the wrappers crackling in the inky silence. We then heard voices somewhere behind us. “We made a wrong turn,” Tom told Adrian. “So I decided to go back to the entrance. Then we just followed your route.”

We all tromped back through the dark watery stew to the drizzly twilight of the entrance and climbed up the cable ladder to the top. As we peeled off sodden gear back at the vehicles, I asked the wizard what his next spelunking adventure would be. “Oh, I’m getting out of this muck!” Adrian said, gesturing at the leaden sky. “In ten days the missus and I are going to Crete for a week.” A wise wizard indeed.

If you go:

Doolin Activity Lodge Bed & Breakfast
County Clare, Ireland
One hour from Shannon Airport
Four hours from Dublin Airport

Hosts: Niall and Deirdre

Tel: +353 65 707 4888
Fax: +353 65 707 4877
Email: info@doolinlodge.com
http://www.doolinlodge.com./

Open all year, Niall can connect you with guided walking and cycling tours plus on-site caving and diving facilities. En-suite rooms with under-floor heating are excellent for drying wet caving clothes. Several pubs and restaurants are within walking distance.