Gangs of Ireland (without Di Caprio)

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Our Ireland trip was probably the highlight of our trip. We arrived in Dublin to meet up with Mursheen (Naomi) and Durkin (Chris) at the new Generator Hostel. We were staying in a 4 bedroom private dorm and the place was probably the nicest hostel we have ever stayed in. All the beds were brand new, as were the sheets and the pillows. I cannot tell you how much it gets my goat when hostels continue to force patrons to use pillows that have developed severe deformities. Once we were checked in there was little left to do on a Monday night other than form the meanest gang Ireland had ever seen.

The following day the final gang formation plan was discussed and approved and we converted to a bikie gang. However upon our journey to collect our vehicles, we came across a lady who was rather inebriated on the street. As myself and Mursheen are bleeding hearts we attempted to help the lady after she got king hit by a taxi pole (at least I'm sure that's what she told the fuzz). I went to the nearest shop (which happened to be a wine bar - funny that) and asked them if they could please call an ambulance. When the guy looked at me like I was talking Swahili I explained to him that "in Australia, we would call an ambulance" - Mursheen thought this was rather hilarious and thought that this statement could only have been more bogan if I had added onto the end (excuse my Swahili) "ya dickhead".

When the fuzz finally arrived we moved on post-haste lest they realised that they were dealing with hardcore gang members. We collected our bikes and navigated ourselves around the streets of Dublin. We weren't sure where we were going, but by golly did we look cool, and mean. We went and visited Trinity College (although I'm pretty sure we were in the wrong part and shouldn't have been there), then we stumbled across the Oscar Wilde statue, got ourselves some soup and a sandwich (the first of many) and made our way to the Guinness Museum. The museum was pretty cool and I learnt a valuable lesson - never laugh up. But the highlight was most certainly the Guinness at the end. One each - plus a half for myself and Mursheen ("sorry Scotty, you're still sick"). We made our wobbly way back to the hostel and then hopped on down to O'Connell Street for some eats.

The next morning we had to leave superdooper early to get our bus to Belfast. We thought it would be a good idea to show Dublin one last time how tough we were and rode our bikes down to the bus depot. Thinking we knew where we had to drop the bikes off, we came to realise that we were entirely mistaken and ended up being late. Very late. Luckily I found Gerry our bus driver and convinced him to let the gang deposit our bikes. Thankfully he let us and we set off for Belfast.

The tour consisted of going to see the preserved head of St. Oliver Plunkett (yes, really, a preserved head) in Drogheda, the celtic crosses of Monasterboice and onto Belfast for a look around town as well as black taxi tour of the Belfast Murals. Personally, I was a little disappointed with the Murals tour as when Papah and I were here last it was fantastic. The tour was different this time as driver (tour guide) only gave us information about two sets of murals as a whole and broad information about the Troubles (which Gerry had already done). For example, we didn't see the Bobby Sands mural, the Hunger Strike mural or the Potato Famine mural. Although, much has changed since then. The Belfast government are now attempting to move towards murals which represent peace and tolerance as opposed to religious divide and hatred. After the black cab tour we had an hour or so to look around town, have some soup and sandwich and then it was back to Dublin... or was it? Gerry left some people behind. BAD GERRY! Although, the gang were in no position to complain, we delayed the trip by half an hour that morning.

Back in Dublin, that night we decided to go and get some soup for dinner and maybe a sandwich. I'm not entirely sure how it happened... but somehow we got on a road where soup and a sandwich was something that MUST be eaten once a day. Warm, delicious, non-judgemental soup. We went to the pub where we met up with Mursheen and Durkin when Scotty and I first arrived in D-town. On the sign outside they said it had lentil soup. I thought to myself "NJ, you know what you are? What brain? You're ALL about the soup". So lentil soup it was. Or was it? Yes, it had lentils. What I did NOT expect was ham. Now. I dont want to cause a fuss. But WHY. WHY OH WHY did you NOT state that lentils were not the only key ingredient. I can imagine them out the back, sign on the table having a team meeting about what that evenings specials would be.

One says to the other; Gerard Butler you know what I hate?
No Paddy, I dont. What do you hate?
Vegetarians, Gerard.
What are you gonna do about it Paddy?
Well Gerard, I'm going to trick them see. Lure them into a false sense of security. Make them trust in the fact that lentils never hurt anybody. Then you know what I'll do? I'll put HAM in their soup. Mua ha ha ha!
Hey Paddy?
What Gerard?
I'm a really attractive Irish man.
I know Gerard Butler, I know.

Let the road trip commence!

Woo!! Road trip! This morning we got us some eats, packed up our room and Scotty and I headed off to collect our new car friend, Geoffery. On the way to collect ol' Geoff, we made the fatal mistake of thinking that we could be an effective bikie gang with only two of us. Thinking that there were drop off points all over the mighty city of D-town, we were saddened to find that where we picked up the bikes was indeed the end of the line. After our lovely bike ride, we headed back to the drop off point and hailed a cab.

Geoffery collected, it was back to the hostel to pick up Mursheen and Durkin. Aaaaand we're off. Oh. No. Oh. Nick.... NICK! Where is Toitle? Open my bag. Oh my god. No. Not... no. Get me the phone. QUICK! Hello Generator? Hi, I uh, lost my turtle. We were in room 23. If you cant see him, he answers to Toitle. No. I'm not kidding. Find me my Toitle. TOITLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

We called a few times and sadly he was never discovered. Papah and Mumah say that he has run off with the leprechauns, but I'm not sure. I have heard from our new friend (we'll talk about him later) that he has been in contact with his friends in Indonesia and Toitle is apparently planning to go on a worldwide tour telling stories of his adventures. Toitle, if you're reading this. Please call. Mumma misses you.

With heavy hearts, we set off for Kilkenny. The drive was almost entirely made up of motorway, but at some points the view was very pretty. We stopped in a small town which was nothing but a small street and some castle ruins (which was sadly shut). We stopped for some lunch (Mursheen and I got the soup) and pressed on. It was a really lovely town, and the pub where we had lunch was probably the most laid back place we ate at during the whole holiday. It was nice to visit something really really local.

Eventually arriving in Kilkenny, we navigated our 7 seater through the narrow streets to find some accommodation. Finally we located a hostel and were pointed in the direction of cheap parking. We decided to check out the local food and beverage establishments and returned back to the hostel to have a feast - NJ's famous salad and Scotty's beer absorbing spaghetti. After dinner we went to the local pub to listen to some local Irish music and do what the locals do best. There are some interesting photos from that night.

A rough nights sleep, but at least they have wifi. And a fire. We checked out and went to go and look at Kilkenny Castle. The gang were in unanimous agreement that we would rather look at castle ruins than look at castles which had been refurbished. It was a lovely castle, but it was more spectacular from the outside in the gardens. The castle was owned by a family who were (it has to be said) quite self important. Honestly, who has a huge hall entirely decorated with paintings of their family? The information sheet told us that this room was used solely for the purpose of inviting guests and saying "we're pretty good, arent we?"

I was still pretty ill and whilst I was procuring medicine Mursheen sneakily snuck off and returned looking very proud of herself.

Look! I have presents, she says.
Really? What do you have there?
A CD of Irish drinking songs. And we will listen to it again. And again. And again. And then some more.
Awesome, I says.

Turns out Mursheen and Durkin were pretty good at sleeping in the car. And seeing as I was the driver, I had to endure this CD for a very very very long time. You couldn't turn it off either. As soon as you did Mursheen would wake up and say "hey, what happened to the CD?". It was from this CD, that Naomi and Chris scored their nicknames. I named them after the song!

Moving on the next morning, we headed to Killarney. On the way we stopped in Cork for lunch. Unfortunately it was a very overcast day, so it seemed there was very little which was special about the town. We wandered around for a while and had a look in a church or two. It was once we began driving again that I realised how close we were to Blarney and pushed the speed limit to get there at a quick pace. Unfortunately when we arrived at Blarney Castle we had missed last entry by about 10 minutes. The gang had a quick meeting and decided to break in. Scotty stood out the front of the one way exit telling us how he thought we could squeeze through the narrow gaps to get through. Until he realised that you had to be very committed to the cause - there was a high chance you would get stuck in there. Oh wait. Look. There is a camera. I'm sure that we made the security guards day! We are probably the worst criminals Ireland has ever seen. With once again heavy hearts (mostly mine, as I had been to the castle before and it was certainly one of my favorites) we kept moving.

Our Killarney accommodation was at a converted manor house just 5km outside of town. We arrived quite late at night and to say that we had trouble finding the place is a huge understatement. When we eventually got there we went and got some soup afore some shuteye.

In the morning we needed to do some washing - we were at critical hygiene levels and something had to be done. When I enquired at the desk re: facilities and timing, the pink haired lady stated that she believed that it wouldn't take long and we would be done with the washing and drying prior to checkout at 11am. Sadly it was not to be and we were there for a very very long time (during this time our rather drunk friends called during votes night) and left with wet washing.

It was on this day that the rain started (and it was pouring). We persisted and continued on with our adventures in Killarney National Park. Firstly we went and visited Ross Castle and then trekked around the Torc Waterfall. The waterfall was quite pretty but I found the walk around it much prettier. As you walked up the hill you had long views of the country side and as you kept going there were small little waterfalls. We then had a quick look around the Old-New looking town and headed off for Bunratty where we were to have a medieval banquet at Bunratty Castle.

We arrived in Bunratty at a lovely B&B just down the road from the Castle. We were greeted by an old guy with a dog. He took our washing and kindly dried it for us before he dropped us at the pub so we could get some Irish courage into us before we headed into the banquet. At the pub Scotty and Durkin did their votes shots (Mursheen and I have photos (rather unflattering as the beer chosen was gross) to prove it). We then headed into the castle to be greeted as ladys and lords. We had some mead (OMG!!) and went to sit down for our food. We got seats right at the front so were right next to the entertainment. Everyone was in costume and there was lots of singing. It was highly entertaining and we left the evening light of step and glad of heart. So much so that we walked past the accommodation, a long long way past the accommodation.

Next morning the old dude made us some eats and we checked out, but not before he told us to come back sooner rather than later lest he be dead.

Excitedly, we then made our way to the Cliffs of Moher. The day was again rather overcast and lightly raining, but we did get some lovely photos of the cliffs and some other photos of Mursheen breaking Durkins umbrella.

From here we made a quick detour to Doolin to check out some giant stalletites in a cave. We missed the tour by about 10 minutes (a seemingly common theme) so we kept on keeping onto Sligo. On the way we stopped through the most religious town in all of Ireland, but as it was heavily raining we didn't get to have much of a look around. There were some really elaborate monuments in the town, so thinking that the church would be too we took a quick look inside. Well, the church was not at all magnificent and the locals were highly unimpressed by the out of towners peeping on them. Once again, we arrived in Sligo late so it was off to bed for another early day.

Our final destination was Derry. On our way we passed through Donegal to have a look at the castle (half refurbished and half ruins). We had a big drive ahead of us, and we had figured out how to listen to the Harry Potter books - winning!! We arrived in Derry and found some accommodation at Paddys Palace. The hostel was being refurbished, so it was a bit of a mess, but we got ourselves lots of food and drinks and made a night of it.

The next day we walked around the town walls and visited the murals. I played tour guide and used my well practiced Irish accent to move my peeps swiftly through the history of old Derry town. I found the murals here much more interesting - maybe because they were the same as when I was last here or maybe because below each of them you could read what they represented. We got ourselves a sandwich (should have got soup - they were yuck) and headed onto the Giants Causeway. It was a really beautiful day and it was rather busy. The weather held up for a good while which meant that we had a really good walk along the rock formations and took lots of photos before it started to rain again.

From there we went to go and look at Dunluce Castle, but wouldnt you know it.. we had missed the last entry by 10 minutes. So Mursheen in her anger attempted to scale the walls. Not successfully, but it was funny nevertheless. The castle is right on the water and even though we couldn't get in you could walk down to a small cave underneath. You could also get right down to the bottom of the hill the castle rested upon and look out over the water. Yet another missed castle for the gang 😞

We then arrived at our last night together, booked in at a nice B&B in a town halfway between Derry and Dublin. The accommodation was lovely, and we were staying with a really nice and helpful family. The room we had booked was for all of us and had an amazing shower. The beds were amazing, and just what we needed after a trip heavy with long car journeys and uncomfortable beds. We realised that we were going to have to drive all the way back to Dublin to drop Geoffrey off, which meant that we were going to miss our booked flight. Thankfully the lovely owner took over and arranged on our behalf to drop him at the airport we were leaving from.

It was sad to say goodbye - we had a really amazing, unforgettable time. It would not have been the same without Naomi and Chris. This trip with you both will be something we will never forget.

Love NJ&NJ

P.s Naomi screaming 'Toitleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!' across the Giants Causeway has to be my favorite moment of this trip.

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