Picking your way around great boulders tossed up by the Atlantic storms near Gort na gCapaill on Inis Mor may not be everybody's idea of a holiday. But for tourists interested in the slabs of rock which are full of fossil brachiopods dating back 240 million years, a new tour company in Galway gets you to places the others don't reach.
Two natural science graduates from Galway University, Padraig O Briain and David Tierney, set up Wild Ireland Walking Tours earlier this year with help from FAS and the Galway City Partnership. Their tours, which take up most of a day, give the visitors an insight into the west's distinctive ecological system not available on the normal tourist routes.
As well as Inis Mor they conduct ecological tours of Coole Park near Gort. Where the typical Aran visitor is transported by trap to Dun Aengus and back, the Wild Ireland client is drawn away from the herd and brought to the ancient fort by the labyrinth of pathways along the southern cliffs.
At Poll an Iomar, birdwatchers may study the islands' main breeding ground for guillemots and razorbills. After Dun Aengus it's lunch in Kilmurvey and more walkabouts before turning back to Kilronan.
Once the home of Lady Gregory, Coole Park near Gort is now a nature reserve on the edge of the Burren with a thousand acres of natural and semi-natural woodland.
Sited on limestone rock, it includes turloughs, those seasonal lakes unique to Ireland which rise and disappear in winter and summer. The largest, Coole Lough, supports a variety of specialised plants and animal species, including Yeats's "Wild Swans of Coole".
Padraig O Briain is an honours graduate in botany who also studied zoology and geology. His colleague, David Tierney, has honours in zoology and studied botany. Padraig has worked as a tourist information officer on Inis Mor and as a heritage guide in Coole Park.
They're both in for the long haul: it's "slow enough" but they are getting more clients "by word of mouth". They admit to learning by experience, and the coming winter will see them concentrate on marketing abroad and developing their web site.
Plans for next year include a seven-day tour taking in Kinvara, Oughterard near the Corrib, Roundstone or Clifden in Connemara, Inis Mor and rounding off in the Burren.