Deep Scottish Love

A hairy Coo

After a bad start on Friday night – we got a call 2 hours before our train trip to say that the B&B we had booked had double booked us for our Friday night accommodation, and with a rugby game on that night in Edinburgh we had had a lot of trouble finding accommodation in the first place, however the B&B we were supposed to stay at sorted us some alternative accommodation, and out of embarrassment the B&B guy collected us from the train station and took us to our alternative accommodation. So all actually ended well! Whew!

It was so nice catching the train again and enjoying the views of the 4 hour journey. It only felt like a week ago since we had done this last, but in reality it was actually a year and a half ago since we had been to Scotland. Interestingly, this was our first fully guided tour with randoms that we had done.

After arriving, and getting collected by the B&B guy, we went for a walk around the Royal Mile and took some night photos of Edinburgh.

Edinburgh Castle at night

Day1
We wandered to the Haggis tours office on the royal mile on a cloudy morning where we queued up with lots of others. It was busy because of the long weekend. Once on the bus we headed out of Edinburgh towards the lowlands, passing an impressive piece of architecture, the Forth bridge, designed by the guy who designed the Eiffel tower (Gustav Eiffel).

Our first stop of the day was a little village called Dunkeld, which is known for its Salmon fishing and the largest river in Scotland, the River Tay.

River Tay in Scotland - famous for its Salmon Fishing

We had a quick stop to look at the ruined cathedral, and a brief look around the cute little town.

We then continued on to Kingussie, where we stopped for lunch. We decided to try a deep fried mars bar! Interesting! Not too different from a deep fried moro in Palmy, just as gooey and fattening!
We continued on to a place called Clava Cairns, which seems to be a burial site similar to that of Stonehenge. There were numerous of these Clava Cairns’ and they were basically made of schist stones, in a circular structure.

Clava Cairns

We then arrived at the new Culloden Moor museum, which has been built on the site of the battle of Culloden Moor. Culloden Moor, known as the battle that changed Scotland and the world! Basically the Battle of Culloden (16 April 1746) was the final clash between the French-supported Jacobites and the British Government in the 1745 Jacobite Rising. Culloden dealt the Jacobite cause—to restore the House of Stuart to the throne of the Kingdom of Great Britain—a decisive defeat. It was the last battle ever to be fought on British soil.

Cool house at Culloden Moor

Culloden Moor monument

The reason why this battle is of so much interest to us colonials is that once the British Government won, they sentenced the Jacobites to death, but many of them got out of this death sentence by being deported to the British colonies! Very interesting! Sooooo next time you start a conversation with a NZ’er of Scottish decent try and slip the battle of Culloden Moor into the conversation!
From here we stopped at Loch Ness. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see Nessy, and in all honesty, the lake isn’t very exciting without a random monster in it! We then had a quick stop at Urquhart castle which we didn’t go into as it had started to rain and then we moved on to Fort Augustus where we stayed for the next two nights. After dinner we headed down for a boat trip on Loch Ness which was a nice way to end the day.

Nessy!

Loch Ness

Me and Nessy just hanging out

Day 2
This morning we set out early for the Isle of Skye. On our way there we drove passed Eilean Donan Castle, where we returned to at the end of the day. To get to the Isle of Skye we crossed Skye bridge, and then headed to Portree. As true British weather goes, and even more so as Scottish Highland weather goes, the day was a pathetically drizzly day, so unfortunately we didn’t get to see much of the highlands, but in all honesty I had never imagined Scotland to be hot and sunny! We got pointed out lots of cool landmarks, but we couldn’t see them! The most interesting bit was a windy cliff where there were rocks underneath that created a whistling noise.

On the way home we stopped in to Eilean Donan Castle which was the most picturesque castle we have been to so far. It has been used in movies such as James Bond and the Highlander.

Eilean Donan Castle

When we got back to Fort Augustus we went to a show that explained kilts, weaponry, and history. It was a huge eye opener just to understand how the scots lived back in the old days, and how useful the kilt was used as an all season, multipurpose tool!


Day 3
We set out early on our last day, stopping off to see Ben Nevis (highest mountain in UK), which we couldn’t see the top of, due to weather again! Then we arrived in Glenfinnan, a beautiful loch, surrounded by mountains. We were only intending to stay about 45 minutes for morning tea, however one of the guys on our tour decided to be funny and find out what the emergency engine stop switch did on our bus….So we ended up being stuck there for the next 5 hours! At least we were stuck in a really beautiful place with a café! We ended up waiting for another bus to come up from Edinburgh, while we went for a walk in the rain and also sat waiting soaking up the ever memorable view of beautiful, drizzly Glenfinnan.

Glenfinnan

When our replacement bus finally arrived, we headed towards Edinburgh. We stopped off at some place where we hopped on a ferry to go to a pub for a beer on haggis tours. It was funny to see the guy serving at the bar resemble the Janitor off scrubs!

Cool pub that we caught the ferry to get to

We then headed straight back to Edinburgh passing some of the most spectacular mountains and mirror lochs we’ve ever seen. The scenery is similar to the South Island at home, but the mountains were unusually green compared to the brown tussocky mountains of the South Island. When we got back to Edinburgh we found some dinner and went to bed.

The next morning we had a delicious Scottish cooked breakfast including Haggis and black pudding, giving us plenty of energy to explore Edinburgh castle and the Scottish crown jewels which weren’t nearly as exciting as the English ones – although the castle is pretty cool. We then caught the train back to London.

Bev looking really exvcited about his Scottish Breakfast!

This trip was really cool, and it was so nice to spend some time in the outdoors in wide open spaces, that really do remind us of home! We ended up leaving with some deep scottish love installed in our hearts :o)

Norway, Yeah Way

For the 1st May bank holiday (long weekend) we headed to Oslo, the capital of Norway. Many months ago before I had a job, Ryanair had a flight sale to Norway for £1. We were keen to book at that time but we did know if we could afford the weekend away, as tempting as a £1 flight is. By the time I found work the tickets were up to £10 each way so we booked it considering the price was cheaper than a train ticket to Birmingham. Good old Ryanair decided to add on twice the price because we weren't EU citizens, but we took them anyway because it would be still a cheap weekend away ...or so we thought. The morning we left we read a book that said that be prepared to be shocked by the prices in Oslo - they were very expensive. I’d never thought I’d find a place that would make London look cheap! The only thing that was reasonable was the price of the hotel we stayed at.

We woke at 5am on Saturday morning to get to the airport outside London (Stansted). When we got to Norway we had to get a 2hour bus ride to Oslo, that almost cost the same price of the flight, eventually getting to the hotel about 5pm. Good old Ryanair for flying to and from airports in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t the best start to the weekend, a lack of sleep and a long transit time. On the way up to Oslo we did get to see a bit of the country side. The landscape reminds me of scenes off MacGyver, with the rocky woodlands. The country side is littered with barns of the same dark red colour and design (like children’s story books about farmyards), and the roads seem to have plenty of tunnels going through rocky hills.

When we arrived into Oslo we thought we’d check out some markets near the bus station, but when we got closer they looked dodgy as, and there was even a guy that eyed us up on the way there looking like he was going to mug us….not a good start. We then scooted quickly out of there and wandered into town to find our hotel, and being cheap it wasn’t in the best area. So this didn’t leave us a very good impression to start off with either.

We grabbed a cheap Kebab for dinner (£6, in London £4) from a place that made their own pita bread - yum. Then we went for an evening walk to check out the harbour. We had a walk around to have a look at the stylish new Opera house on the water front, Oslo Castle, checked out some, old sailing ships, and Noble peace centre. It then got dark and our impression of Oslo got a lot better. We walked to the Royal palace, which we quite cool because it over looked the main street, and it looked just like Buckingham palace …and funnily enough the guards looked the same too (who copied who??). Old buildings were lit up at night which made the place look really cool. We found an awesome sweet shop that sold Gelato and some of the most amazing looking cake (the cake reminded me of Café Cuba) and we took in the awesome atmosphere of the street at night. There was one amazing busker who had drawn a crowd of us, he added to the atmosphere.

Nobel peace centre

The Royal Palace - Looks like Buckingham palace

Day 2
We sleep-in the next morning to catch up on some much needed sleep. Breakfast was a part of the hotel deal so we took advantage of this and sneaked in some sammies for lunch! The Norwegians love their fish, and have fish for breakfast, along with a sandwich filling type breakfast…handy for our lunch. With a surprising amount of things to do in Oslo, we did debate whether to go on a cruise to see the fjords, but that meant we would have had to give up our day on Saturday, and also it wasn’t the proper fjords, but more of a touristy tour around the harbour – the good ones were further west and would have required an extra couple of days to see. We were glad we didn’t when we spoke to some of the kiwis on our flight back. They said they had mates go and pretty much fell asleep.

Being in Norway made me think how similar to Japanese they are; they love eating fish (whales too), the announcements on public transport sound Japanese, and some houses even look like Japanese architecture. But in reality we found them to be similar to the Dutch, in terms of their food and language (how they can switch from Norweigian to perfect English without blinking an eyelash), however we did find them to be less friendly than the Dutch, with most of their customer sales people adopting a bored disinterested attitude. We bought a 24 hour Oslo pass that got us free entry in to the endless amounts of museums and transport on offer, so we headed out to the outdoor folk museum first (glad we didn’t have to pay for transport I saw a lady pay with a 200NK (Norweigan Kroner) note (£20) for a family of 4 and didn’t get much change at all!). This museum was basically a couple of hundred buildings to recreate how the Norwegian people use to live throughout the ages….we found this got tiresome quick and were off to the next museum, the Viking ship museum. This was impressive, they had three actual Viking ships on display that they had dug up and put back together, and was well worth the anticipation. The Vikings were incredibly clever seamen.

Next we decided to check out the sculpture park. It was a very cool park with many sculptures showing many human emotions. The park reminded us of how much it was like the rest of Europe, when the suns out, people congregate to the park and the disposable bbqs come out. We then debated with the wallet on what to have for tea, finding out the cheapest restaurant that our guidebook recommended us was going to cost us a minimum of £15 per main, the equivalent in London of a £7 dish!.....cough! So we eventually decided to go have pizza from the place we went to the night before.

The Gol Stave Church - Outdoor Folk museum


Grassy roof

Old Viking ship

Vigeland Park - Sculptures

Day 3
Same again with breakfast - A nice sneaky packed lunch! The next day we checked out the Castle. This was a 16th century castle, but it was unlike all other castles we’ve seen, this one is made of brick! Before our bus to the airport, we checked out a few shops. Good old Ryanair, no allocated seats, so we had to make a run to get our seats!

Although we moaned about how expensive it was, all in all it was a good trip, especially going in with low expectations! And Jam like it lots because they thought she was Norwegian! The weather was great, a little colder than London – when we left London on Saturday it was heating to be a scorcher, but when we got back it was a lot colder than Norway…so we were quite pleased we didn’t miss out on too much!

The centre of Oslo

The harbour

Oslo Town hall

Keeping up with the Joneses

So recently I had another birthday – 21 again :o) YAY!

We decided to take the day off work, and relax doing London activities.
So in keeping with this idea, we started off with a couple of hours of relaxing in the sun at the park – yay for a spring birthday (and surprisingly sunny weather) versus my usual NZ autumn, rainy birthday. We then got all dolled up, and headed for a very posh high tea at the Dorchester. The Dorchester is on Park Lane (for any of you who have played Monopoly), so it is very swanky, with doormen wearing top hats and tails :o)

Outside the Dorchester

It was a fantastic experience – we really felt like upper class society, sipping an unlimited supply of superior quality tea, and being treated to cut sandwiches of various flavours, and then French cakes and finishing off the whole experience with scones with jam and cream! We were so full when we left we basically rolled out the door. What was really funny though, was seeing the type of people who were also dining there, on a weekday. One extremely posh lady in her 50s (who had either aged really well, or could afford copious amounts of botox and plastic surgery), sitting beside us seemed to know all of the waiting staff by name, and was asking them funny questions like “When you see me come through the door do you a) Think Oh no not her again, b) Run in the other direction, c) Think, yay her again? And the very tactful waiter said option e)! And the lady goes, but there was no e) option – precisely lady! He is not exactly going to go with option a) if he wants to keep his job is he!

Bev looking mighty pleased with himself - look at those delicious French cakes!

Me dying to crack into the scones with jam and cream, mmmmm!

We then spent the rest of the afternoon looking around the Green Park area (very close to Lizzy and Philips house), Bev showed me where his work is and we had a look at some really cute shops specifically for rich people, such as the real version of Rodd and Gunn – where guys actually go to buy their jumpers, check shirts and pants for game shooting. There was also a specialist shop for cigar smokers, where the only thing in the shop was cigars! How do these shops survive!

We then grabbed a quick dinner at a westernised asian restaurant (but delicious) called DimT with a superb view of Tower Bridge (slightly better view than I can get from my works office window)

The view of Tower Bridge from the restaurant

and then we went to the Globe Theatre to see Romeo and Juliet. I have wanted to go to the Globe since arriving so it was so cool to finally go, and we really loved the performance, it was really well done and just the atmosphere was really cool. I can just imagine what it must have been like in Shakespeare’s time. One of the funniest things was that Friar Lawerence was played by a kiwi guy - Rawiri Paratene who was in Whale Rider, and who was on Play School when I was little - awesome! Kiwis are taking over the world little by little!

The Globe Theatre

An excellent day out on all accounts!

Wales of a time

The four days over Easter we road tripped around again with Olly in his luxury new 2009 Audi. We arrived in Rhyl (top north of Wales next to the coast) just before midnight, and could barely tell that we were there. At night it looked much like any other place in Britain, the only exception was that people had a slightly different accent and road signs had welsh translations on them. We stayed the night at Olly’s flat and found he had the largest backyard we have seen since being here. I said to him that you could fit 12 London flats on that patch of land!

Easter Friday
The morning was a little wet, as expected with what everyone says about Wales. In saying that, everything is very green. We found Wales much like home with how green the landscape is, the space, the hills and sheep and gorse. It was a lot more like home than Ireland is, especial with their passion towards their number 1 sport, Rugby. And also the amount of fish and chip shops we saw.
The 1st stop of the day was a place called Llandudno (Ll is pronounced with a C)(the welsh have a lot of L, G, D, and F’s in their words and a lack of vowels). It was very much like Brighton, a packed old seaside town with colourful houses on the waterfront and a Pier. After checking out the pier we climbed a hill near by overlooking the North Atlantic Ocean. We then headed for Conwy to check out the old walled city and Conwy castle next to the river. All I can say is that it was the best castle I have seen so far in our travels.

Conwy Castle- was awesome to look at but I didn't manage to get a photo from outside!

The design and location was awesome and beats any of the castles we have seen in Ireland and England. Next was a quick visit to a place that has 58 letters to its name called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. It was a quick stop just to get a photo of this town’s name! It actually translated to ‘St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave’. The next stop was Beaumaris castle, and I tell you that these Welsh knew how to build nice looking castles. This was another unused medieval castle ruin, but the fact that you could walk inside the walls of the castle was pretty cool. It was amazing how the light just disappears when you enter the walls, like going into a cave. Smelly and damp like a cave to, and also had interesting long drop toilets…
We checked out the town of Beaumaris with UK’s oldest house, and then checked out a 6th century old monastery we spotted in the distance. Caernarfon castle was next on the list. Unfortunately it was closed. But being considered highly recommended because it was one of the worlds best medieval castles, we figured it wouldn’t have been as cool as the last two castles, as this one would have ha d a bit of money pumped into it to from tourism to flashen it up. Never the less it was cool looking from the outside.

Day 2
We got up early, by our standards, to climb Mt Snowdon in the famous Snowdonia national park. Mt Snowdon is 1000+m, the highest mountain in Britain and Wales (not including Scotland according to the Lonely planet book, because Scotland does have higher mountains and this fact would devalue the great Mt Snowdon…). For us Kiwis, we’d consider it a big hill, but we found we couldn’t really treat it as this. Everyone look over dressed in mountain gear for an oversized hill, while a friend of ours mistakenly did the hike in jandels and shorts! It took us over two and half hours to get to the top along a rocky track, but the view was worth it. It was amazing watching the huge line of English and Welsh make their pilgrimage up there. We realised afterwards that we haven’t ever climbed anything this high before…wow….

View of the lakes on the way up Mt Snowdon

Finally at the top of Mt Snowdon

View from the top - 1000+m Mt Snowdon

Day 3
Understandably we started the day off being quite tired and finding muscles we didn’t realise we had. We headed towards south Wales via the supposed beautiful west coast (the awesome white sand beaches we could spot from the Plane going to Ireland). We stopped off at a west coast town for lunch and were impressed by the pastel coloured houses in the town, but disappointed by the ugly stone beach. We had a stopover to check out a recreation of some ironage village. We then made our way down to a small town called Fishguard and had a quick look. It did get prettier. Next was St David’s, named after Wales most well known patron saint, equivalent of St Patrick for Ireland, and St George for England. We then drove to the nearby White sands beach where it actually was sand and beautiful. Unfortunately we had run out of time to see anymore of Pembrokeshire’s famous coastline. It looked like Coromandel without the Pohutakawa trees.

Cool waterfall on the way south

Recreated Ironage Village

Finally! A sand beach!

We had to find accommodation on the last night in Wales, but the selection of cheap hostels or any hostels at all were minimal compared to Ireland. We discovered why as we drove around; there are heaps of camping grounds. It seemed that every 5 minutes driving you’d spot a camping ground. We settled for a hostel near Tenby, an old army barracks.

Day 4 – Easter Monday
We enjoyed a traditional Welsh cooked breakfast at the hostel that morning, finding it was no different to an English, Irish or a Scottish breakfast! We headed towards Cardiff, stopping off to check out Wales 2nd largest and ugliest city, Swansea. We travelled inland and found the country side to be really beautiful as it was coming into spring. It was interesting to see how greener it was in the south compared to North Wales. The country side was stunning, as it looks like our green North Island without pine trees, but with nicer green trees and shrubs. We eventually got to a place called Tintern, which featured a cool run down old abbey. We headed to Cardiff afterwards and saw the Millennium stadium from the outside and Cardiff castle from the outside. It was the cost of Cardiff castle that kept us out. So we sat outside it and waited for our train. We didn’t find Cardiff very exciting at all, it was plain, quiet and dirty, but this could have been due to the fact that it was Easter and no street cleaners had been.

Tintern Abbey

Jam in the Abbey

Outside Cardiff Castle

A spring in our step

Things are starting to warm up here. We have put away the winter coats and gloves now, but there is still a bit of chill in the air. Summer is around the corner!

We have been to one of Gordon Ramsey’s Restaurants for our 4th year wedding anniversary. We found it to be nice, but not fantastic….although we wished we could have afforded a Michelin star one.

Dining at a Gordon Ramseys Resturant

We have also checked out the Cambridge vs Oxford boat race, which is a big national event, and it happened to start just down the road, where we stayed with my cousins, Putney Bridge. We watched the start, all of 2 seconds of it and then went back to the pub to watch the rest of the 16 minutes. It was bit of a non event watching it live, but an excuse to go enjoy the spring sunshine.

We have had to live through the G20 protests/riots, which were hyped up by the media. Because Jam and my companies were in central London we were told to dress down in mufti. It was quite cool that morning when I switched the telly on to see that Obama was arriving at 10 Downing Street just down the road. Nothing really serious happened, just a bunch of people angry at the greedy banks for stuffing other peoples lives up, which is fair enough.

Press and crowd waiting for Obama

The hockey season has ended and our team managed 2nd in the league, so promotion for next year…although I didn’t manage to contribute any more than 5 games this season! We went to my clubs end of season hockey ball, and it was one of the most awesomest nights ever. One thing I love over here is that when the brits get dressed up for an event, they do it properly. Black tie actually meant proper black bow tie and dinner suits. Had to spend a bit but everyone looked fantastic!

Now we’re looking forward to Wales for Easter.

To be sure, to be sure

Ireland

Day 1 – Saturday

We flew to Ireland on Saturday March 14th from Heathrow Airport, into Dublin with my Brother Jamie and four friends. At the airport we left our four friends, and met up with another Kiwi friend Olly, for a road trip! Olly lives in North Wales, and gets a car through work, so he drove over on the car ferry from Wales (an awesome Audi, with leather seats, and built in SatNav – which was definitely the saviour of our trip). At boarder control it was funny hearing one of the officers ask one of the last people off the plane, "Are there anymore kiwis left in New Zealand!", must have been plenty of kiwis over too for St Pats.
Olly picked us up in Dublin and as soon as we were all in the car, we headed straight for Belfast, wasting no time in Dublin, as we knew we would be back to Dublin on for St Patrick’s day and then to fly out on our last day. The only major stop we did on our way up to Belfast was in a small town called Banbridge, where we found a bakery for some lunch. The lady who served us at the bakery had the most delightful thick Irish accent, that we just wanted to keep ordering more stuff from her in the hope that she would talk to us some more :o). It was quite funny during the trip up that we wondered why everyone was driving way after than us and we were sticking to the speed limit of 60, and then realised that we were no longer in the republic of Ireland, but in Northern Ireland where it’s miles per hour instead of kilometres per hour!

We had pre-booked our first nights accommodation in Belfast, so we headed straight for our hostel, and parked up the car for the day. The hostel was extremely cheap at £6 each (granted we were in a dorm of 18, and for some reason the brick walls stank??). We then booked a Black Cab Tour around Belfast which was really good, and very eye-opening! The murals were really cool, and it was interesting to learn the history behind the IRA etc.

One of the many murals in Belfast

If there is one thing I have learnt whilst travelling around the UK that I find interesting, is that all throughout time, the English always seemed to get themselves tied up in conflicts, all around the world……….!
After the Black Cab Tour, we then went for a walk around Belfast, which is quite cool, they have an impressive City Hall etc. The city really is a sad reminder of all of the violence that has happened there – such as the pubs have metal cages around their entrances, and the cop cars are all landrovers, with bullet and smash-proof everything!!

Police car - Pimp my ride styles

It was a little scary arriving there 2 days after the most recent IRA attack on the city court house, and a couple of IRA related murders, however the only evidence we saw of this was the blackened court house. It was really interesting that so much of Belfast reminded me of Berlin – there seemed to be a lot of parallels between the two cities.

Day 2 – Sunday

After a slow start, we decided to have a look around greater Belfast. It was quite interesting being in the city where the Titanic was built, and left for its maiden voyage. It seems wrong in a way that they brag about how they built the Titanic considering it sunk, however they quite rightly say that when it left Belfast there was nothing wrong with it – however I guess the point of contention would arise around the number of lifeboats onboard…………! We decided to check out Belfast Castle – which ended up being more of a mansion than fort, but had beautiful gardens and was situated on a hill above Belfast, so there was a good view of the port so it was quite cool to see everything from this elevated perspective. We then decided to head up the hill behind Belfast Castle (Castle Cave Hill) for a better view and a bit of a look at Fort, and a cave in the hill.

Olly investigating the Castle Cave Hill Castle

We then hit the road, and headed straight for Giant’s Causeway, having spent far more time climbing Castle Cave Hill than originally intended. Giants Causeway was really cool, a series of octagonal shaped stones, formed from the lava of a volcanic eruption many years ago, on the edge of a beach – which made for some spectacular photography. The name Giant’s Causeway comes from a myth about a fight between a Scottish Giant, and an Irish man, Finn MacCool which ends in the formation of a causeway of stones between Ireland and Scotland, which was then destroyed by the retreating Giant, as he cowered back to Scotland. I am guessing this story came about as there are some similar stones to those at Giant’s Causeway in Scotland.

Giant's Causeway

We left here late afternoon, and headed to a small town called Kilcar, via London Derry – a walled city. There seemed to be a lot of drunkards in London Derry (well heaps of the little Irish towns now that I think about it) but we found out that there had just been a soccer match on that they had all been watching at the pub which explained the excessive drinking. After a quick stop at the supermarket and a €1 shop and cheap clothing store for some green clothing in preparation of St Paddys day, we headed on to Kilcar. Not before jokingly being call 2nd hand Australians by some pissed locals….it was a good call, we’ll give then that!

After getting a little lost trying to find our hostel, we arrived to a very small hostel in a remote area, that was basically a guy’s house, and he runs it as a hostel. Comically, his name was Shaun. The guy is also the chef at the local school, and he was a really friendly Irish guy. I think the fact that he had two roles in the community immediately made me feel at home – that is exactly what people did in Naike. He made us a cup of tea on arrival, and we sat in his lounge and talked with him for most of the evening. We learnt a bit from Shaun about the ongoing struggles of North and the Republic and how it is ingrained into the current generation; whether you say Londonderry or Derry can determine where you’re from (or possibly get beaten up depending who you’re talking to). We kiwi’s wished everyone could just get along, but it’s possibly something we don’t fully understand.

Day 3 – Monday

The next morning we were going to head for a bit of a walk around the area, but it was drizzling, so we skipped the walk and headed to Muckross Head – which was around the coast from Kilcar.

Mucross Head - Donegal

Kilcar was the highlight of the whole trip for me – it is exactly what you imagine Ireland to be like, rolling green hills, bordered by stone fences, dotted with rocks, small single storied white stone houses set into the hills and then the land abruptly comes to a sharp cliff before dropping to a wild sea. To finish the whole picture, the day was a slightly drizzly, foggy day, so the sea was rough, and it was crashing against the rocks creating quite a spray into the air. I also learnt later that this area of Ireland is basically the only part that doesn’t have good rail links, and I think this is what appealed to me the most – it felt remote, and very country like – I could so live there!
From Kilcar, we basically wound our way around the coast from there South, going through Donegal and then on to Sligo. We stopped in Sligo for lunch, and did some more last minute green clothes shopping! There was a river that went through the centre of Sligo that looked like they bottled Guinness straight from it! From Sligo we drove straight through the middle of Ireland back to Dublin, in anticipation of St Patrick’s Day the following day. That evening we caught up with our friends who had remained in Dublin when we arrived in Ireland, and went out for dinner with them.

Day 4 – Tuesday – St Patricks Day

Preparations for St Patrick’s Day started early, with us all donning green attire and painting ourselves all up in green, orange and white.

Dublin was a sea of green faces and bodies, it become evident that everyone dresses up for St Paddy’s day in Ireland! However, we seemed to be the only ones that had gone all out and painted our faces too :o) We caught the bus into the town centre – which wasn’t the best idea we had ever had, or would have been better if we’d left earlier, as we got stuck in heaps of traffic, so we eventually abandoned ship, and walked the remaining distance in the hope of getting an ok spot for the parade through the main street. Unfortunately we saw mostly the backs of people between us and the parade, and not much parade, but what we did see was pretty impressive – heaps of colourful and cleverly assembled costumes and props.

The backs of peoples heads, and one of the floats in the parade

Another of the floats in the parade

After the parade we headed with the flow of the crowd, through town to the Temple Bar area, which is basically where all the pubs and restaurants are in Dublin.

The stiffy by the Liffey (or more formally referred to as the Dublin Spire)

We met up with our other friends at a pub there and soon made friends with some Americans who had decided to come over for St Paddy’s day too – most or all of which had Irish ancestry. There were definitely a lot of Americans in Ireland for St Patrick’s Day.

Day 5 – Wednesday

We started the day after St Patrick’s Day with a Guinness factory tour. I really enjoyed this "tour" – it can’t really be called a tour, because there wasn’t a tour guide, merely a path that had been labelled up, more museum exhibition like. However, it was really well done, and then it was all finished off by a nice cold Guinness – which was my first. I really enjoyed it, it’s quite strongly flavoured, on the same taste spectrum as coffee and marmite I think, but I don’t think I could drink more than one in a row. After our Beer we headed to the Guinness Shop, and had a good time buying some stuff there. One thing I learned whilst at the Guinness factory was that the Guinness book of records was named that because Guinness sponsored the book – this sounds like an obvious thing to find out, but I had never really even thought about it.

A well earned Guinness after touring around the factory

After the Guinness factory, we headed south out of Dublin. We made a quick stop in a small fishing town called Wicklow, which was really pretty – especially since the weather was really nice.

We had a look around the remains of a fort, and walked along a jetty to a light house.
We then continued south, and made a quick stop at the ruins of a church we found on our way through Avoca.

Avoca - a cool church ruin we came across

We then made our way to our hostel for the evening, which happened to be a castle, called Jenkinstown Castle Hostel. I found this castle really creepy – as we arrived after dark in thick fog, and the area surrounding the castle was covered in fog too. We were also the only guests at the hostel, so that didn’t really help my edginess.

Jenkinstown Castle Hostel

Day 6 – Thursday

Anyway we survived the night, and I was quite pleased to move on the next morning! We firstly headed to Kilkenny, and we had a walk around the town, Kilkenny Castle and a few Cathedrals around town. We then headed to the Rock of Cashel which was probably my favourite sight of the whole trip – it was an ancient cathedral, dramatically perched on a rocky outcrop. We arrived at just the right time to go on a guided tour of the Rock of Cashel, so this made the place all the cooler.

Olly at the bottom of Rock of Cashel

Rock of Cashel

We by passed Tipperary – although we were in Tipperary County, and I can say it is a long long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go. We then left hoping to arrive at Blarney Castle in time to kiss the Blarney stone, however we just missed the last admission to Blarney Castle which was a bit disappointing. We then tried to see if we could find somewhere local to stay so that we could go the next morning, but unfortunately there weren’t any hostels near Blarney Castle. So we continued on to Kinsale, a popular seaside town, known for its excellent culinary delights. We had ideas of trying these culinary delights, but when we learnt that they were asking anywhere upwards from €15 per main, with most around €20, we decided that cooking something from the supermarked would be a better idea – especially as the pound and the euro were pretty much 1:1! I have never spent $50 NZD on a main before! On our way back to the hostel a guy walking dog stopped in our path and took a dump in front us (the dog not the guy), the guy apologized and then kept walking, which satisfied out curiosity of why there was soo much dog poo on the street.


Day 7 – Friday

We decided to spend some time on Friday morning looking around Kinsale. We spotted a fort on the satnav and went to investigate, and then spotted the other in the distance when we were at the first fort, and decided to investigate again – we discovered there were two quite cool forts built in Kinsale, James’ Fort and Charles Fort.

Charles' Fort

We then headed for the Ring of Kerry (Iveragh Peninsula), stopping off at Bantry to sample some local food for lunch when we spotted some local markets.

Pretty shops in Bantry

The ring of Kerry has been rated as being the best sight in Ireland, and whilst some parts of it were really pretty – with nice secluded beaches, it really was quite similar to home.

Bev had been waiting the whole time for some spectacular views in the Ring of Kerry to take photos of, but was quite disappointed. It didn’t help that it was kind of foggy weather as we drove around. We did see the most interesting thing, and old man (presumably had a few too many from the pub) was walking, with the slowest and shortest of steps, straight down the middle a quiet road we were driving down, wearing a hi-vis vest completely oblivious to the world. We presumed his family did him and other road users a favour by providing him a hi-vis vest before he went to the pub! After driving around the whole of the Ring, we headed to Kilarney, in the hope of a nice Irish Stew. We were happy to find a nice pub (however extremely touristy and still €15 per main) with live Irish music, and serving good ol’ Irish stew opposite our hostel.


Day 8 – Saturday


From Kilarney, we looked around the nearby area, arriving at Ross Castle bright and early before the crowds arrived.

Ross Castle

We then drove through a piece of Kilarney National Park during a foggy morning. We then headed north to Limerick and stopped off the check out a couple of castles. When we left one of the castles in Limerick we got pulled over by a mufti cop, and it took us more than a few seconds to establish who this person was. But of course when the lady in plain clothes just says "Garda" (police) in an Irish accent, it makes you wonder what this person is trying to communicate to you. Apparently we were in a dodgy area and there had been national news of an incident that morning, so she pulled us over because 4 young people in a flash new Audi doesn’t seem the norm in Limerick! She told us to move on (after we told her our drivers licence was stolen from the back of a weetbix box) and so we headed out of town to Galway. We grabbed some lunch and had a picnic on the beach.



We planned the day so that we would arrive somewhere in time to find a pub and watch and absorb the atmosphere of the 6 nations rugby final between Ireland and Wales. It ended up being in Cong, town size of 180. It was really cool being in a small Irish town watching the Irish play the Welsh in a final – we were actually secretly supporting the Welsh and Warren Gatland (our Kiwi connection), but we certainly didn’t verbalise our loyalty in front of our passionate Irish companions whom were so very passionate! However it was pretty cool to witness the atmosphere of an Irish pub in a tense game as it was, and also when the Irish won! Especially since it was the first time they had won the 6 nations in 61 years.



Day 9 – Sunday

Getting up early, we hit the road early, and headed back to Dublin for the last time. Once in Dublin, we went on a tour of the Jameson Whiskey Factory – which unfortunately was a guided tour full of annoying Americans!
We then had a look around the centre of Dublin, much of which we had glimpsed quickly on St Patricks day.
We then headed to the airport to return back to London.


All in all, we were very fortunate to have nice weather for the whole week, as the locals had been telling us that the weeks before it was quite poor, and was forecast to go bad again just after we left! The Irish 1st 2 major sports are Gaelic football and hurling, but Rugby comes 1st when it’s on the international stage. Ireland has some pretty cool castles; almost all are ruins unlike the renovated mansions in England. The ruins which don’t have any money pumped into them are quite cool as they have a better historic feel to them. There are lots of old roofless, unused stone houses, graveyards and churches littering the landscape through the country side.