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Published: August 7th 2007
Fishermen returning from the sea
Watched from the decks of Kuala Selangor fishing villageI went back to Ireland in February to see my family and Sean came along for the ride!
First stop England
After 27 hours of travelling we arrived in London and stayed with Lisa for the night. We were thoroughly exhausted when we arrived. Luckily it was late in the evening so we didn't have to stay up too long. The plane was a bit late so we missed out on going to a glam-rock gig with Lisa. Instead we had some food (dinner? breakfast? I'm not sure!) Giraffe by Spitalfields and then walked to see the "Gherkin" and the Lloyds Building. A fantastic hot chocolate from Carlucci's accompanied us on the cold night. Brrr.
In the morning we got the train to Stafford. We spent the weekend in the area as we were here to celebrate Dave's wedding. We spent the first night in Stone and went to the pre-wedding dinner. Although we could only stay up till ten-ish as the jetlag took hold😞. The next day we went to Cheadle for the wedding at the Manor. This is also where we stayed that night. The wedding was a great day. Sean & I both really
Newgrange Passage Tomb
5,000 year old passage tomb in my home county. enjoyed the
Newgrange Passage Tomb
5,000 year old passage tomb in my home county.Cumberland ring and you just can't beat blowing bubbles or the After-Eight mint game! We managed to stay up till 11pm that night! It was great catching up with everyone I used to work with.
Bob drove us to the Red House pub the next day for the post-wedding lunch. Nothing like a roast dinner to make you feel nice inside. We said our goodbyes to the newly weds and got a lift with Bob back to Birmingham. We met Colin and Mark (my old housemates) and caught up over a curry. We stayed with Colin that night. Sean started to feel a little unwell and spent the entire next day in bed, struck down by a flu. I read. He only got up when we had to leave to get our flight to Dublin. Thanks Col for calling the taxi!
Ireland
My parents and sister (Jennifer) met us at the airport - although they were a few minutes late! We stayed with them for about two weeks. I spent the time catching up with family - granny, aunts, uncles and cousins galore.
A pint of the black stuff!
Didn't quite get through this! I think Sean was worn out from visiting by the end of it! I am
A pint of the black stuff!
Didn't quite get through this!from Kells, Co. Meath which is a pretty historic area so we also did some "touristy" things. We went to Newgrange to see the 5,000 year old passage tomb, Trim Castle (about 800 years old), High Crosses, Round Tower and St Colmcille's house in Kells (all from about the 7th Century). So, yes, Sean got to see lots of old stuff! I also took him out to see the farm. Even went down to river. I hadn't been down there for years!
The great thing about being at home was the food. There's some stuff you just can't get in Australia. Like Taytos, good sausages (ones I like anyway), potato waffles, black pudding, white pudding, decent SPUDS, roast chicken dinner with decent spuds, stew with decent spuds......yum!
We went to Dublin for a night too and stayed at a guesthouse right beside the famous Lansdowne Rd stadium. I took Sean to see the Book of Kells which is on display in Trinity College. He also got to see the GPO on O'Connell which
he knew from the film Michael Collins and the 1916 Easter Rising. We had a HUGE Irish breakfast in a pub. On the second day
London Eye
we did some shopping at Dunnes Stores (can't beat it!) and took a tour of the Guinness factory. It really was a great tour, even if we didn't particularly the free beverage at the end of it. There are great views of the city from the Gravity bar at the top.
We eventually had to leave Ireland (and the yummy food) behind and start making our way back to Australia. A taste of Ireland came with us - Taytos, Mum's Christmas pudding, a huge tin of chocolate Kimberly’s and some teabags for Harry!
Aside: My cousin Harry arrived in Melbourne a few days before we left for our trip. Sean & I picked him up from the airport and introduced him to his first Irish pub in Australia!
England
We flew from Dublin to London. Here we stayed a night in the worst hotel ever in Earls Court. It was pretty bad by anyone's standards. The bird in the cage in the lobby really was a clue. Yuck.
We ate in Chinatown that night and had some drinks in Leicester Square. The next day we got a train Salisbury. Unfortunately it was raining when we got there
View of the 'Gherkin' from Lisa's street
which didn't make our visit to Stonehenge later that day very pleasant. I think we spent approximately ten minutes outside looking at the 3,000+ year old ruins. My umbrella did not survive!!
We stayed in a lovely guesthouse for two nights and took the opportunity to visit Bath. We went by train and saw the white horse cut into the Wiltshire hills. We spent most of the time roaming around the Roman Baths! It was amazing to find out that they had only been discovered when people complained of hot water leaking into their houses. The town had actually grown up and over the baths. We did also walk up to the Circus and the Royal Crescent but the weather didn't allow us to spend much time here and we took refuge in a pub where we had a nice lunch and people-watched for a while.
It absolutely poured that night when we got back to Salisbury which meant we got trapped
Me & Sean
Pre-wedding dinner at Granvilles in a pub by the River Avon for a while. That wasn't so bad!
Back in London took a cruise along the River Thames seeing lots of sites along the way and then went on
Me & Sean
Pre-wedding dinner at Granvillesthe London Eye to get a different perspective! We saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and the lions in Trafalgar Square.
We spent our last few hours in London catching up with Lisa and then dragged all the luggage to Heathrow for our flight to Kuala Lumpur. Note to self: we WILL be travelling light in the future!
Kuala Lumpur
Arriving late at night in KL without a hotel booking may not have been the cleverest of things to do but luck was on our side and we got a room at the Renaissance Hotel. It is the most luxurious place I have ever stayed. Nice. We certainly took advantage of the outdoor Olympic size swimming pool on the fourth floor. The service was fantastic and the range of food for breakfast was almost overwhelming - you could have anything from pancakes, to beef rendang, miso to cereal.
In KL
Dave - the groom to be the night before the wedding
He locked himself out of his room the next morning with everything for the wedding inside. Ooops! we went on a 'country' tour which involved our personal tour guide (Prem) taking us to see the Batu Caves, Kuala Selangor pewter factory, a batik factory and Kuala Selangor itself. On the drive to Kuala Selangor (which was an hour and half from
Dave - the groom to be the night before the wedding
He locked himself out of his room the next morning with everything for the wedding inside. Ooops!KL itself) we passed many rubber tree and palm oil tree plantations and Prem had lots of interesting little facts to tell us abut the area. The highlight of the tour was having a fantastic dinner at the tiny Chinese fishing village in Kuala Selangor while the sun was setting. The whole place was built on decks over the water. We watched entranced as the fishermen passed by; some going out to sea and some returning. We ate seafood which even though I don't normally like it, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The crab was delicious! After sunset Prem took us to the see the fireflies. We cruised down the Selangor River in the darkness to watch these tiny flies light up the mangroves like Christmas trees. It was amazing
to watch and would have been a tranquil experience if it had not been for the noisy people in our boat😞.
On our last day in KL we were supposed to take a 'city' tour but in the end we just went exploring by ourselves. We went to the KL Tower for some great views of the city and then to Chinatown for a bit of atmosphere. In 40-something degrees
Who's hidding behind there?
Chris & Bob!heat and high humidity it was a bit overwhelming at first. We had lunch here before returning to our hotel where we sipped drinks by the pool until it was time to leave for our plane back to Melbourne.
Our trip had come to an end. We were completely exhausted but full of great memories.
There are 4 pages of photos. Click on next (below) to see them.
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