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Published: November 5th 2009
On Thursday (15th October) we left Killarney and our first stop was at a beach. The weather was quite 'fresh' but not freezing and the sun was shining so we decided to go for a walk down the beach and through the water. Far out, the water was absolutely freezing! First there was the inital shock of the cold water on my feet and ankles then it kind of went numb but then it was so cold that it just hurt. There were a couple of people surfing - craziness! We kept on driving along the coast admiring the ocean and green rolling hills. The weather again was perfect and the sky was blue.
Our tour guide Mike, told us about the Potato Famine that started around 1845-46 when the potato crops that were so heavily relied upon failed. The whole of the country was not in famine as there was still sufficient crops being exported to other countries it was that the food that was available in the country was not being made available to the starving. So the government developed a number of projects and by working on these projects the poor and starving were then paid which
in turn allowed them to buy food. The projects included the construction of roads that didn't lead to anywhere and the famine walls which went up the sides of mountains and were for no particular purpose. We saw quite a few famine walls that were built during this time thoughout our tour. Lots of people perished building these projects which I think is quite sad and a waste.
We continued along the coast which made for another lovely drive. We had another chance to walk along the road that wound down along the coast. The next stop was at a supposed 'Fertility Rock' so of course I gave that a big hug. Oops! haha :-)
The town of Dingle was our next stop and it is home of Fungi the dolphin. He first showed up in Dingle Harbour in 1984 and has been there ever since. He is always in the harbour and boat tours that go out in the harbour have a money back guarantee if you don't see Fungi! So of course this presented another photo opportunity for me, not with the real thing unfortunately but the statue was the next best thing. We had a
Famine Wall
is the squiggly stone wall running up the side of the mountainlittle look around the town then headed to our accommodation for the night, the 'Randy Leprechaun'. Once we dropped our bags off, Mike took a couple of us that were interested down to a nearby lake that was pretty.
Back at the hostel we had dinner and met up with another PaddyWagon tour group. It was karaoke night so our group did an extremely bad and embarrasing version of 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'. I am cringing just thinking about it. Other people that sung were pretty good and it was good fun. I started feeling unwell that night and the fact that we were in a 'party hostel' which I think means you have to drink so much that you don't realise how poor the accommodation is, didn't help my situation. I had a bunch of people singing (screaming and banging on the tables) irish songs underneath my room. Good fun!
I was sharing a room with the 3 boys in the tour and 1 other girl so when they came to bed that night 2 of the boys thought it would be funny to put one of the mattresses out in the hall. They almost away with
it until they were caught by the other guy. Not being ones to give up easily the 3 boys then decided to put the other girls mattress out in the hall. They succeeded. All the while, still feeling sick I just keep my eye mask on. When the girl got back to the room I finally decided to see what they were doing and at that point one of the bunks was almost on it's side when the girl tried to pull the guy off the top of the bunk for putting her mattress in the hall. It was pretty funny!
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