Touring Ireland

Mon 23rd - Spent most off the day on the Hop on Hop off tour of Dublin with the mandatory stop at the Guniness Brewery - an wonderful experience, they brew 3 million pints of Guniness per day and export 70% of that! Weather fantastic but very cold, today's top 12 deg C......



Tomorrow we head to Northern Ireland then back to the south of Ireland.

Tues 24th - started to pack up for the rest of the tour of Ireland – the inevitable – we had to buy another suitcase for all the souvenirs!!! Went to pick up the car at Dublin airport and tried to give us a Corolla even though we had paid for a bigger car. The only other car was this flash all singing, all dancing new black sports Volvo, but had to knock it back because the cigarette lighter didn’t work, which was needed for our SatNav – bugger. Finally settled for a Ford Mondeo Station Wagon, how boring…..

Drove up to Northern Ireland for lunch at Enniskellin, checked out the broken castle and headed off to Sligo. The Irish scenery was really nice, helped by a fine day. Sligo is a post war town with no attractions at all, not even a B&B, and found this great little B&B (Crockets Inn) on the river at Ballina in Killah Bay next to the Black & White Pub which is around 350 years old, used to be a coach house.




Wed 25th – Full Irish breakfast and sat with an Irish travelling salesman (batteries) had had a great conversation. Checked out the ABC (Another Bloody Castle) and the sites and off to Castlebar and Westport. Tried to visit Galway, but the traffic was horrendous, U Turn & off to Limerick. On the way, stopped at a Inn in the middle of nowhere for quick cup coffee and tea, and chatted to the landlord, Jim. We asked him why the Northern Ireland & the Irish are separate – well, we really pushed his button. After about 40 minutes we made our excuses and left.



Jims Pub

Shortly after leaving Jim, still chatting away, now with himself, down came the rain, it bucketed down non stop and the viability down to a few hundred metres. Many parts of southern Ireland had severe flooding and brought most of the traffic on the motorways to a crawl. Abandoned our plans to visit Limerick and stayed at the Ach Na Sheen B&B in Tipperary, took us a LONG time to get there…..

Thu 26th – The Landlady from last nights B&B mapped out a route for us through some wonderful villages and scenery, then spending four hours driving through Kerry’s Ring (Ring of Kerry to the local’s), one of the highlights, stopping at a B&B in Killorglin. The room was huge, the landlord brought us cake and tea on arrival and was very keen to relieve me of my WCE shirt as he had connections in Perth and was familiar with the AFL code.
We dropped into the Manor House hotel on the way to dinner, 5 patrons in side, a bloke was by himself in the adjoining bar, wheezing, coughing and we think dying, and I’m sure one of the blokes at our bar was dead, didn’t move for 20 minutes! We renamed it High Care Hotel.



Ladies View around Kerry's Ring

Fri 27th – After breakfast, the Landlady, like yesterday, mapped out another tourist drive for us, through a mountain pass called Conner Pass, guaranteed that the views from the top would be breathtaking. Well the weather came in and when we were about 100m above ground level, we were in thick, thick, thick fog, and unable to turn around on the narrow track (called a road in Ireland), didn’t see a bloody thing. Finally arrived at a fishing village for lunch before heading off to Cork for the Jazz. The rain started again about one hour from Cork.



View from Conners Pass - FANTASTIC!

We arrived at the Rochester Park Hotel in Cork, best hotel so far, 4 star, huge place, 600 hundred odd rooms and all full because of the Jazz Festival. Decided to get some take away (or “take out” for the locals) for dinner – BIG mistake. Here we are in a strange place, it’s raining cats & dogs, traffic horrendous and it’s dark. We drove around for over and hour and a half, finally finding a fish & chip shop 1100 metres from the hotel. We ordered a fish and chip supper, thinking fish, chips, prawns etc, but what we got was quite different. The fish was put onto a piece of paper, covered in chips and then I reckon they pored half a litre of revolting mushy peas over the lot – yuk! Again, most of it ended up in the bin (read dunny) – tip – when in Ireland – DON’T order a F&C supper….

Sat 28th – Off to the Blarney Castle (ABC) to kiss the Blarney Stone. Gave the kissing a miss, but got to the top which was quite an effort! It was worth the climb to the top through the narrow circular staircases.



Blarney Stone is where the two bloke are

Spent the rest of the day at the Cork Jazz Festival in town, some great Big Bands, Jazz & Blues, all free and the Guinness at 4 euros a pint – bargain. In the evening, went to the local bar to watch the Gaelic football match between Australia & Ireland. All was going well until the last 90 seconds, so we slowly rolled up our Aussie flags and headed back to the hotel.



Cork Jazz Festival Program

Sun 29th – Woke up to rain and fog – well it is summer…. Dropped the car off at the airport but the flight from Cork to Bristol was delayed due to the fog, and this is at 3 in the afternoon! However, there was a Jazz Band playing at the airport. Rang Deric for his 25th birthday from the airport. At Bristol, we were picked up by Brian & Maureen (Wayne’s folk’s) and headed back to Plymouth where we arrived safely at around 7:30pm.

Mon 30th – At Brian & Maureen’s, finally a rest day – done nothing!, however, Bruce broke the bath – another story.