Saturday 6th June
We left Galway at the usual time, but as we were unsure where Joe was meeting us, went outside and we about to head up to the square, when low and behold Joe rocks up in the bus on the other side of the street.
Back at the bus we headed off again and drove through the Burren Landscape (similar to the landscape of the moon (apparently – personally I didn’t really see it as it was pretty rocky).
After a few photo op’s of the burren landscape we drove to and stopped at the Corcomroe Abbey. This was then followed by a stop by a holy well where we all thought a penny/cent into the well and made a wish, one of us was the photo girl for another tour group who drove slowly by to take pictures instead of getting out to take them. And then we stopped at some more small cliffs before the Cliffs of Moher.
We get on for another long day of stops all over the place. Our main stop was at the cliffs of Moher, which were spectacular. There is a section of the track which a huge signs warns not to go beyond, but you get some of the best views from the other side and get to be right up to the edge of the cliffs. A number of us went past it to join all the others on the other side to view the cliffs and get close to the edge – luckily no-one fell over the edge but it was quite windy and towards the end of our time there it began to rain quite heavily.
At the end of the day we stopped in Cork where it was raining, 5 of us went out and bought some food at a local shop and cooked in for the night (it was raining all night long so we didn’t end up seeing much of the city except for what we drove through). Towards the end of the night Renee got a new nickname of Drunken Girl by an Irish girl – even thought Renee wasn’t drunk, but a different girl was.
Sunday 7th June
Our first stop was at Charles fort and then an hour stop at Kinsale for a rest period and to see the city/town. Towards the end of our time there I joined in on a town guide for a 10 minute listen into on the history of the town.
Our next stop for the day – two hour stop – was at Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone. Most of us kissed the stone, and while there were a number of people in front of us and we thought it’d take a while to get there to kiss it, most of the people in front of us didn’t kiss the stone.
Some of us ended our time in Blarney with lunch at one of the local restaurants/pubs.
From there we ended our day in Killarney where there had been a local Gaelic Football match on between Cork and Killarney, as such there was a huge amount of traffic and we went straight to the hostel instead of a drive around the town.
From there I went for a walk around the town trying to see what was open other than the pubs – pretty much nothing except for a few clothing stores and Dunnes department store.
We all went to dinner with Joe to his recommendation followed by a night drinking at his recommended bar. There were some local Irish music playing after we arrived. After a few hours after Joy and Betty had left us, Joy came back to say there was another pub down New Street where they were playing, singing and dancing together. We all walked down there to find us coming in midway through the final song and being the youngest people in there, as the average age in the pub was about 50.
We subsequently left the place and found a club further back in the centre of town – a couple of streets away.
We eventually left there about 12.30am leaving Inya, Vjeran, Ryan and Julie to enjoy the loud music and drunken Irish.
Monday 8th June
We got to have a sleep in this morning as 5 of the group decided to do the Jaunting Carts optional ride. As such we didn’t have to leave the town until 10am.
Our first stop was atop the hill over looking Killarney for a few photo’s.
Our second stop for the day was in Killorglin at the statue of King Puck, the last unofficial High King of Ireland. King Punk as it turns out is a goat. The quote goes “Kings may come and Kings may go, but King Puck goes on forever”.
Why is King Puck a goat? Well for hundreds of years, a male mountain goat has been enthroned as King of Puck Fair in Killorglin town. The Puck Goat reigns over the fair held on August 10th, 11th and 12th of each year. King Puck is a symbol of a vast tradition whose origins are lost in the mists of time. As such because the Irish didn’t want to elect a new high king after the last one died they created King Puck to rule over the Irish instead. Damn the Irish are weird.
We stopped along the coastline for a few photo op’s as always. The next stop was at the Old Barracks in Cahersiveen as well as a photo op of the Monks sculpture.
Our next stop was in Waterville where Charlie Chaplin use to visit regularly and stay in a white house down near the ocean and beach.
For lunch we stopped close by at Sneem where we enjoyed a nice lunch and beer. We followed on with a stop at the Ladies view point, and then the Torc waterfall, back through Killarney onto Inch Beach were we stopped for a dip of the feet into the Indian Ocean.
Following this we arrived at our final stop and were we were due to spend the night in Anascaul at the Randy Leprechaun.
There isn’t much in Anascaul except for the Paddy’s Palace backpackers, a few B&B’s and then some houses. The shop contained expensive food and so it was a night of eating at the pub of Paddy’s Palace. During the night we got to do some karaoke. Ryan, Charlotte and myself started of our group with Bohemian Rhapsody, then Charlotte and I sang I’m a Believe. We got to listen to some good singers and some shockers, luckily we were all roughly in the middle of it all.
We weren’t the only tour group there as there was another 6 day all Ireland tour who happened to be there the same night as us, which was good as it wouldn’t have been such a good night with out them.
As it turns out I ended up chatting with an Aussie chick who had spend a year over in Europe studying law, and was of Sri Lankan descent. (Unfortunately I didn’t end up getting her contact details that night or the next in Killarney either – slacker that I am).
Tuesday 9th June
Today we started at 8.30 to do the Slea Head coast road ring. We stopped a few times along the road for a few photo op’s. The first one was along the road at the new stone building for the Stonehouse Restaurant, opposite of which was an old stone fort – didn’t go down to see it as it cost money. At the stonehouse there was a donkey which started to bray for a while just as I rocked up (about 1 second before hand another donkey further away had brayed – which I don’t think anyone else heard). After this we stopped at some ancient Beehive huts which were used for the monks who were waiting to be transported to the monastery located on one of the nearby islands.
Next Joe dropped us off at the next point along the way and got us to walk along the road to where he had just driven down too – just a long smoko for Joe really, but a really nice walk and wonderful views from the cliff road. After this we stopped a little bit further down the road to take a photo of the sleeping giant – island that looks like a giant lying down – near where we stopped there was also a very small narrow road that was used in an Irish greeting card saying an Irish Roadjam with a lot of sheep.
This was then followed by a 2.5 hr lunch break at Dingle – a Gaelic speaking fishing village – the 2.5 hrs was a bit too long in this village as it wasn’t very large and we ended up leaving early because we were all back at the bus with about 5-10 minutes spare – it was also raining quite heavily at the end of our time there.
We made our way back to Killarney for our final night together on the tour. We got back fairly early (about 4.30pm) so we spend a bit of time just doing nothing – I recharged my phone. We all went out to dinner for the final night to the same place as before, before heading to the same pub as before (the Grand) for some live Irish music and another live cover band after that. We left there at just before 2am and headed back to the hostel for the night.
Wednesday 10th June
Early start for us this morning – having to drive a fair distance from Killarney back to Dublin. Our first stop after the usual petrol halt, was in a little town called Adare – there isn’t much in the town, although apparently there was a reasonable amount of stuff to do near the town, and as such could just the town as a base to explore the region. Anyway all that was basically there were some thatched-roof houses and a church, and as I was fairly tired having had little sleep the night before, I wandered around for a bit before heading back to the bus and sitting outside it until our time in the town was up.
We then followed this by a drive to and stop at the ruins of Dunamase – or the Strongbow Castle as it was owned at some point in time by Lord Strongbow – yes someone had been kind enough to leave an empty strongbow can in the grass.
We had a few photo op’s in the ruin before heading off again for our next to last stop at the Midway food court (somewhere in the Irish countryside) where we stopped for an hour for lunch.
Our final stop in the day was back in Dublin at the Guinness Factory, as we only had 2 hours there myself and Mel (who wasn’t that fused about the place) made our way topside to get our free pint Guinness – since I had done the pulling of the pint on my first visit to the factory, I let Mel pull a pint and got some photo’s of here doing it for her. Luckily for me she is Mormon and so doesn’t drink, and so I got to have her pint. We caught Adian and Charlotte up there aswell before heading to the Gravity Bar on the seventh floor for a view of the city and my second pint. By this time we were rushing it a little bit and so I only had about ½ hr to drink the pint and get back to the bus – which we did eventually.
The off we were again to our final destinations of our respective sleeping abodes. As mine was different to everyone else’s I agreed to meet them back at the Paddy’s Palace where they were all staying and head out for the night from there. We ended up at Super Macs for dinner (Irish version of Macca’s), before heading off to the Arlington Hotel for a few drinks and to listen to some Irish music and see some Irish Dancing for free. The night ended fairly early and I got to bed at the hostel very early.
Thursday 11th June
Woke up after a good nights rest, and went down for breakfast. Met a girl from America and we got chatting and as I was planning on going to the Jameson’s Whiskey Distillery, she asked if she could tag along and I had no issues with that so off we went after eating. We got there just after another tour had started and were able to join on to that one. The tour guide was really exciting and clearly loved his job (said is a sarcastic tone of voice). He seemed a little bored and unsure even though it turns out he does the guiding quite regularly.
The added advantage was that they do some whiskey tasting at the end of the tour but only 8 people can do them (luckily for us there were only 8 of us so we all got to do it). 3 shot’s of different whiskey and 1 glass of Whiskey later off we were again, although not until after we got talking to an America couple who were also doing the tour. Interesting conversations followed needless to say of which most I don’t remember. We parted ways, I went on for a walk out to Croke Park Stadium and my lovely companion went her separate way as well.
That was pretty much it for the day as I eventually got back to the hostel and lazed around for the rest of the day before a cheap in house cooked meal and again an early night.
Friday 12th June
Work up late but in time for breakfast. Decided to do an independent tour out of the city and went to Howth which is a small fishing village just 30 min’s train ride from Dublin city centre. Nice little place, but quite a windy and cold day and again feeling quiet tired so walked around for a bit, had some fresh fish and chips for lunch then headed back to the hostel for another lazy afternoon on the couch.
Even though it was my last night in Dublin I was still so tired that I ended up in bed early again – unfortunately we had an Italian couple staying in the room who were quiet noisy when there arrived back late in the night after their night on the town.
Saturday 13th June
Stayed in the hostel for most of the day as I couldn’t be bothered doing much in Dublin for my final day there. As my flight was at 9.35pm it was a bit of a long day, but relaxing. I eventually made my way out of the hostel around 5pm to grad some dinner at SuperMac’s and then catch the airport bus. I got chatting to a couple of young girls on the bus (one Scottish the other American) who had met while doing a YWAM course in Brisbane the year previously.
Caught the flight back to Birmignham, quite uneventful, and train back from the airport to the city then taxi home. Unfortuately I had left some clothes for Jay to wash for me while I was away and these unfortunately weren’t done so I spent my first couple of hours back in Birmingham late at night doing some washing so that I could have some clean clothes for the next few days. Oh well these things happen.
Sunday 14th June
Woke early and headed out for some food shopping, and that was pretty much it for the day.
Monday 15th June
Had to head into the Reed offices to provide a bit more info for my new job that was suppose to be starting on Tuesday but was then later delayed to starting on Wednesday instead. Headed to the hostel afterwards to upload some photo’s. The most annoying thing was that I got a call from Edinburgh saying that HBOS has requested an interview and I had to turn it down because I had to job at Lloyds already – damn it when a job comes they all come, but when there’s none there’s absolutely none.
Tuesday 16th June
No work yet, and just another lazy day around the house, although it was a nice day outside so I did enjoy a bit of the sunshine while I could. Got told that I would be starting my new job on Wednesday.
Also now looking for somewhere else to live and so view 3 different places in the evening. 1 was fairly decent the others were a bit iffy in regards to the surrounding houses.
Wednesday 17th June
Started my new job at 10am, and it’s not much of a job, although it is a different position to the one I was told it was going to be, but that’s ok as it is the more interesting of the 3 potential roles that I was going for. Finished the day very down and out, bored and emotional about taking the wrong job and wishing I’d kept to my guns and said no and just gone to Edinburgh. But no time for regrets just wishes is all. Saw another 2 places tonight of which bother were a bit iffy in regards to surrounding environments, but great locations, as they would be near the main road I take down to work.
Thursday 18th June
Job was a little better as I had some access to do things that I hadn’t had on Wednesday, still not that wonderful but I’ll survive at the moment.
Friday 19th June
Job again a little better and I should be able to stick at it for at least the initial 3 months that I signed up for. View another apartment tonight aswell. Right in the city centre just of Broad street, was nice and all new, however a little bit on the pricy side of things and at the top limit of what I want to spend. But it was a double room, and there is apparently a single room coming available at the end of the month which I would probably prefer of the lot. Great location, single rooms a lot better priced and more in my price range of things.
Went to the local for a few drinks, and the night ended in an interesting way, but in the end I’m all good and that’s all that matters.
