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Published: August 20th 2008
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camping is fun
us camping outside Trabert. Just crossed the Mouth of the Shannon by ferry. Mittwoch, 20. August 2008
Glendalough, Ireland
Hi everybody. I’m glad you’re checking my blog again. Sorry I didn’t update in the last couple of days but I couldn’t find an internet connection. So here we go on a longer blog.
Let me start out with where we’re at right now. We managed to get into Glendalough. A small town 30 miles south of Dublin. Which means we’re are back on the east coast of Ireland.
After Doolin, where we had a very rainy night, we hitched down the road towards the Cliffs of Moher and Kilkee. We had a French couple picking us up and they drove to all the places you should see as a tourist. I’ll try to upload some pictures. It was amazing looking down these cliffs into the wild Atlantic sea. After we crossed the Mouth of the Shannon (big river) by ferry we camped just outside Tarbert. That night was supposed to be a moon eclipse but we had cloudy yet rainless skies.
The next morning, a Sunday, we got back on the road and again got picked up by a French couple, another one though. They took us all the way down to Dingle.
Because it was raining we couldn’t see too much, but much more we were, or at least I was happy to sit somewhere dry. After Dingle we managed to get into the Ring of Kerry the very same day. An old priest gave us a ride and dropped us off at a very fine campsite in Cahirciveen. The office was already closed and would open up 9am next morning. We decided to leave before 9am next morning. Actually we had a ton of fun that night. After we pitched up our tent we went inside the facilities to prepare some food. There were kids running all around and I ended up entertaining kids late that night. It was exhausting but so much fun. I felt like being back in a summer camp having kids around you all the time. Awesome.
As we had planned, we left before the office opened up. This was Monday morning. It had rained that night again and we tried to dry the tent in the community room, when a guy of the staff showed up. We decided to pack up a wet tent and make a run for it. Well, “run” isn’t exactly the right
term since both of us, Stefan and me, had our 60pound backpacks to carry. So we “made a walk” for it would be more accurate.
Again we got lucky with our rides. Two American girls from Provo, Utah picked us up and gave us a ride out of the ring of Kerry all the way to Blarney, next to Cork. We went to visit the Blarney castle and kissed that stone up there. And lucky again: the entry fee was 10Euros, which in my opinion is way too much. When we got in line to get in there was a group, a choir from New England, Maine I think. I didn’t realize at first, but they had paid beforehand and now the whole group was just walking through and kinda dragged us with them. Bottom line, we got in without paying a dime.
The castle itself is amazing. One gets to walk through all the narrow hallways and steep staircases. It’s really worth a visit.
The Americans dropped us off just north of Blarney and we got another ride to the rock of Cashel. It was already late when we got there so after taking some nighttime shots we went
to sleep just to the bottom of the castle.
On Tuesday morning, yesterday so to say, we went to see Cashel from the inside. A small fee granted us access to one of the most impressing ruins I’ve seen so far. We spend all morning walking around in the castle grounds, taking tons of pictures and relaxing in the sun, which we got to see again. First time since Dublin. By the way, the weather is crappy. After just a couple of days I got really happy when I saw white clouds instead of black ones. And when I was able to make out just the tiniest bit of blue skies I yelled in excitement. And I’m not kidding.
Another funny thing happened to us yesterday. Stefan found out his flight back home is on the 23th. Not the 22nd as we thought before. That gave us an extra day. After we were aware of that fact we came to the conclusion it would be fun to camp in Glendalough and go hiking out there.
We got to Glendalough, but it was harder than I thought it would be. The guy who drove us into town dropped us off at the youth hostel. Taking into account that we hadn’t had a shower in days and warm soft beds we went into the hostel to ask for a room. 21 Euros per person a night. We were planning on staying three nights in Glendalough. That was way too much for us so we went to look elsewhere for a place to camp. Unfortunately the area is a national park and camping isn’t allowed at all. Nevertheless we walked into the woods hoping to find a hidden spot to pitch up our tent. After walking for an hour or so we saw a light shining through the trees. As we came closer it turned out to be some kind of rentable hostel. We asked the people in there if we could camp outside on the lawn. We ended up having our own room shower and toilet for free. When I got up this morning there was a big box with food in the living room left for us. No trace of the people though. Strange…isn’t it. Anyway. This is where we at right know. We wanna ask if we can stay for two more nights. Hopefully they are back by tonight.
For now Stefan and I are going into the town to find an internet connection to check mails and update the blog.
Thanks for coming by, see you next time
Chris.
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Emily
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Your blogs are fun to read. I am jealous. happy travels and stay safe, CSers ROCK :)