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Published: August 8th 2007
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We arrived in the UK on June 15th, and after a lengthy conversation with the immigration official (he was very keen to understand why we were taking 12 months off to travel at “our stage of life”) we were finally allowed into the country. He was nice enough, however we have subsequently found out that the stamp he gave us in our passports is a code, which means that we get questioned at length every time we re-enter the UK. After 12 days at Northampton in England, staying with Guy's brother Mark, we flew out to Dublin on 27th June ready for our eagerly awaited trip to Ireland.
Well what can we say about Ireland? The scenery was spectacular, the people were friendly, the Guiness was good - but the weather was simply awful. It rained almost everyday, and the temperature mostly hovered between 12 and 15 degrees Celsius. And this was in the middle of summer. Apparently it was un-seasonal although we now understand why there are so many Irish people living in Australia.
We spent the first 2 nights in Dublin, and visited some of the sights, Temple Bar, Trinity College, The Book of Kells and
St Stephens Green. But around lunchtime the weather, which had not been good, turned even worse and we had to head for the shelter of a couple of the Dublin pubs for the afternoon, in the company of our local guide Vin, Sharon's ex-work colleague (in the days when Sharon had a job), and ex-Dubliner.
The following day we hired a car and drove south west to County Cork, where we spent a night in a delightful holiday harbour town called Kinsale. There was a sailing regatta on so there was lots of people around as well as a lot of million dollar boats. Here we stayed in our first Irish Bed and Breakfast with a lovely lady who fussed over us and made the best breakfast. The next day we drove west along the coast across the Mizen Head Peninsula through a number of very pretty towns and villages before finishing the day at the small town of Sneem near the Ring of Kerry.
It was pouring with rain but the next morning we headed off early, hoping the weather would clear. We drove around the Ring of Kerry and the Skelligg ring, through some really specatacular
coastal scenery and on to the Dingle Peninsula and then finally caught a car ferry across to County Clare. We stayed in Kilkee, another beachside town with a lovely beach although unfortunately we didn’t get to try it out.
We liked Kilkee and considered staying for another day but the weather was miserable the next morning so once again we headed off. Perhaps the most memorable part of this day was a place called Spanish Point. We were driving past a beach when we noticed that the flags were out and there was a lifeguard on duty - with the weather a sultry 12 degrees and rain threatening. Well we had to get a photo of this (Guy’s idea, Sharon wasn’t keen to leave the warmth of the car) but once on the sand we discovered that we had to change memory cards in the camera. Not such a big deal you say, but we then dropped the old card (well Sharon did actually but in the interests of domestic harmony lets just say ‘we’ dropped it). With the wind blowing a gale it then proceeded to fly 2 to 3 metres into an area of lush vegetation that
had been planted in an attempt to prevent erosion. We then spent the next 30 minutes feverously searching for the card, which had all of our memories of Ireland on it. We were very close to giving up when we finally found it (well actually Guy found it but in the interests of domestic harmony lets just say ‘we’ found it).
Anyway we finally drove on, through more impressive scenery, past some more beaches where there were crazy Irish people swimming, and on to the famous Cliffs of Moher (looked a bit like Sydney’s North Head). With the weather looking no better we drove on and on, past the limestone coast of County Clare, and finally into the Connemarra in County Galway. The scenery changed here from lush green hills and fields to rock covered hills and lakes. Most of the signs here were in Gaelic and for half an hour or so we weren’t actually sure where we were. About 7pm we finally arrived in Clifden and settled in for 2 nights. Once again the scenery around Clifden was impressive. We visited the small, very pretty, village of Roundstone and saw several more nice beaches.
On the
Wednesday we drove on and arrived in Westport, a town in County Mayo. We were unsure where we would go from there, but it was still raining when we arrived so instead of booking into a B&B we checked into a hotel with a gym and spent a couple of hours there in the afternoon. On the Thursday we drove across the country back to Dublin, and stayed near the airport so we could catch our early morning flight back to England on Friday morning.
Despite our bad luck with the weather, we enjoyed Ireland and time permitting, hope to get back later in the summer to see Northern Ireland.
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Chad
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No legs on the Irish beach I notice.