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Published: October 29th 2008
Hey everyone, I have finally had a chance to get my photos up of Ireland, and all I can say is wow - what an amazing place! Even though Ireland has a reputation for being wet and cold, we were very lucky with the weather and managed to have some stunning days, but trust me it was still cold!
First stop was Dublin but only for the night and first thing the next morning we began our journey in our little green bus. We were a right old mixture of - kiwis, aussies, saffas, americans, canadians, a mum with her two grown up kids - but boy could she keep up with us!
Our trip started with us going to Killarney and visiting The Rock of Cashel a big old castle/church/fortress, but then it was on to Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney stone! Apparenlty once you kiss this you are meant to get the gift of the gab, they also say that the locals piss on the stone...but there's no way they really could when you see where the Blarney Stone is situated. We had to climb this tower to get to it, and if you remember Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory, and the part where the room gets smaller and smaller, well the staircase was just like that! Freaked me out a bit! You had to lean right back and hang on to some rails while this guy hung on to your waist and then you had to pucker up and kiss the stone. Must admit that it looked a bit grose, quite wet from all the kisses! That night I got to taste me first proper Irish Guinness and it definitely tastes better than the UK one, actually better than any outside of the Emerald Isle. We were treated to a story teller evening which was quite funny, some sad stories as well, but you know what the Irish are like with their tales and songs. Jac our guide told us that if you want to find a "worthy" guy you have to ask him what kind of tractor he drives....most have Massey Fegussons, Fords and John Deere's but you know you have hit the jackpot when you find someone who has a Lambourghini one! So you can guess right what I was asking the guys all night! :-p
Did you know that in Ireland
there is no such things as hangovers!? There is just a nasty little leprachaun called Droggert that jumps on your back on the way home from the pub and swings you from left to right so you stumble all over the place, and he also takes all the notes out of your pockets and leaves you with all this change......not to mention many other things......
Next it was onto the Dingle Peninsula and luckily we were blessed with the weather. We did a boat trip out to find Funghy the Dolphin who has been a resident for over 20 odd years in the area, and yes we saw him! He seemed to be in quite a playful mood and even jumped right next to our boat. As we went around the Peninsula Jac told us the legend of the giant Fin MacCool and all the stories about him and his family - he's now asleep off the coast as you will see in my pics. Around the coast there are lots of abandoned old houses that people deserted during the famine and it was interesting to hear about the struggles (the "troubles" is what they call them) that the
Climbing the tower
Climbing the tower up to the Blarney Stone. Remember Charlie & the Chocolate factory and that room that gets smaller and smaller....well that's what happened in this stairwell...the walls go narrower and the steps got smaller...freaked me outIrish went through over the centuries with the famines and wars etc. But it was hard to feel too sad in this area as the scenery and the view out over the islands was breathtaking.
Day 3 saw us visit the Cliffs of Moher which were fairly awesome. These are pretty iconic of Ireland and it was a magnificent view - I even got to see my first rainbow in Ireland here! If any of you have seen the Princess Bride, these are the actual Cliffs of Insanity. There is a tower at the top of one of them and it is said that the guy who owned it use to bring women all the way up here and seduce them with the view.......wonder if it worked!!??....After this we headed through another national park that looked like we had landed on the moon. The land had been pushed up in a massive earthquake millions of years ago, and over the course of these years erosion left just the limestone. It looks totally barren and quite eerie as there is no greenery around, just this flat grey lumpy rock. As we travelled up the west coast further, Jac told us
how these counties of Ireland are very superstitious and they definitely believe in faeries and lephrechauns. These faeries (and no I'm not spelling it wrong) are little people, not the winged type we commonly think of. Farmers put stone rings around areas where they think faeries live and these are called faerie rings, this is so they don't upset them as they believe that they can cause trouble and bad luck. That night we spent the evening in Galway, and I had the best crepe of my life - filled with banana, homemade banana icecream with chocolate sauce and served to me from a guy from Wellies!
The next day saw us take a bumpy boat trip across to the Arran Islands and to the island of Inis Mor, one of the rare places where the locals are fluent Gaelic spakers. We hired some bikes and cruised around the island which was very picturesque with all the stone walls and stone houses - so typical of Ireland. But the main reason we came out here was to visit the inspiring fortress of Dun Aengus which was built in 1000BC. It sits atop one of the big cliffs and you
Get ready.....
This was freaky having to lean back to kiss the stone, and worse off there was an old an sitting there holding onto your waist....trust me you really have to reach back... can get down on your stomach and wriggle out to the edge to view the crashing waves below which was quite freaky. I only managed to just get my head over as it was scary enough with it being quite windy, there was definitely no way that I was even going to stand anywhere near the edge! On the ride back we managed to spot another rainbow too, but no sign of the lucky leprachaun and his pot of gold....damn it!
A long drive took us through County Sligo (Westlife are from here!!) and County Donegal and up to Kilcar. A tiny tiny village out in the sticks where we spent a chilled out day and went to the local pub where there was pretty much the 30 of us and 5 locals. Don't even ask about the story on how three of us nearly got abducted by some locals either! Next morning we were up early and trekked out in the freezing cold and rain out in the middle of no where to view Europe's Highst Sea Cliffs - Slieve League - which are 3 times the size of the Cliffs of Moher. Unfortunatley my photos just don't
and KISS!
I was a bit concerned at how wet the rock was before I kissed it....eewww! do them any justice!
It was a beautiful drive through some big mountains and countryside which really made me feel like we were back in New Zealand and down in the Canterbury Plains. We stopped at one of the famine memorials where 400 out of 600 people died in a storm during a march they were doing on their way back from asking their landlord for help, in which he turned them away. So sad, but at least it was a stunning resting place. The land around here is all bogland too, so we got our first try at bog hopping. Basically you can find areas where you jump up and if you have someone standing next to you they can actually make them jump a bit when you land....was quite funny. Then it was on to Derry in the Republic of Ireland, where we were treated to a walking tour of the city. We learnt about the trouble that led to Bloody Sunday and saw the site where the sad event occurred. There are political murals all around this area of the city that are painted on the sides of houses that demonstrate what happened on that day
Blarney Castle
So the myth that the locals piss on the Blarney Stone isn't true, considering you have to go all the way to the top of the tower to kiss it in the first place! and pay tribute to those that were killed, especially the 14 year old school girl who got caught in the firing. It was very interesting however to learn about it all and to understand how it all built up to such a tragic event.
Next it was on to Belfast, but not before we made a stop at the Giant's Causeway which is one of the eight natural wonders of the world. The rocks here are hexagonal and stand in big columns made from lava cooling from a volcano, but the Irish say it was made by Fin MacCool when he built a pathway to Scotland to find a beautiful lady that he had heard about. The weather really packed in after that as we visited the old castle ruin of Dunluce, and then on to the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge which was definitely Indiana Jones style. This scary rope bridge is suspended between the mainland and a small island and beneath you is a big surging current of surf - not particularly to my liking considering that the swell was right up. We had a fairly big night out in Belfast that night as it was our last
night on tour, but we still had to be up early the next morning. We took a Black Cab tour of the city and learnt about the troubles they have been going through between the Protestant and Catholic communities. It was really sad to hear the stories about how many people have been killed during riots, fights and other protests and how the Catholic community is surrounded in these big high fences to stop attacks. At one point they had to lock the gates at about 6pm on a Friday night and they weren't open until 6am on the Monday morning, it's also sad to know that 18 more of these walls went up in 1998! People have written on the walls asking for peace etc, and thankfully at the moment things seem to be quite calm, but apparenlty it's a bit of a balancing act to make sure that both sides are being kept happy. It just really made me realise how bloody lucky we are back in NZ. That we are able to voice our opinions and have be our own person without being beaten up, having your house burnt down, or even murdered.
After Belfast we
Oops
So we order a Southern Comfort and lemonade and they give us the shots in a glass and a bottle of lemonade...us being thieving kiwis we took the bottle and the shots thinking that was pretty generous....but what we found out is that you are meant to pour in your own lemonade and leave the bottle....oops! Stupid kiwis! cruised back to Dublin and had one last catchup with everyone before we all headed our seperate ways. I have to say that Ireland really is an amazingly beautiful place and there is just so much more that I could have written about it, but as you know my blogs are novels enough with just the basics! Sorry guys! If you ever get the chance to visit the Emerald Isle make sure you do as I'm sure it will capture a small place in your heart with it's breathtaking scenery, magical history and culture and it's fan fecking-tastic Craic!
xoxox Rach xoxox
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Kebabs
non-member comment
You are Crackers!!!
I love the wee leprachan outfit you are as mad as that hatter!!!