Still in Ireland

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Friday 31st July.
Sitting in a beautiful campsite, in Doolin on the west coast, south of Galway Bay. Planning to cycle to visit the cliffs of Mohar when the wind drops below gale force 8 and the rain is less horizontal than at present. (if apparently I can cycle at speeds greater than three Cambodian children on one bike!) In the meantime lunch (inc. several pints of the black stuff) at the excellent pub just up the road is looking like a hot prospect. We were in the pub last night and saw the hilarious sight of a Japanese tourist being force fed Guinness by his family, he clearly thought it was bog water but was compelled to uphold the family honour and drink the vile stuff.

So here we are back in Doolins, not much has changed in the few years since I was last here, same good camp site, same view, same ferry trying to dock in atrocious conditions, same horizontal rain, and slightly less wind! Good food and craic in Gus O’Connor’s hostiliery.

Saturday 1st August
Got the bus out to the cliffs of Mohar which were quite impressive but really busy with tourists (inc. us). Enjoyed the walk back. Still rained at some point every day since we have been in Ireland.

Saturday 7th August
Currently in Blarney having visited the castle with some old stone that’s supposed to be famous. There was a note on an information board claiming that the Blarney stone was actually the Stone of Scone and the other is a fake, still I do admire the fact that the Irish can persuade millions of people to visit a ruined castle, contort themselves into a position to contract swine flu and pay for the privilege. I didn’t kiss the stone because a) the queue went on forever and b) we had a great meal at the Blarney Castle hotel last night and I might have had one beer too many and c) I could do with avoiding swine flu. I didn’t kiss the Blarney Stone either, because I had kissed it over 30 years ago, and some say I have enough ‘blarney’ already’.
During the week past we drove round the ring of Kerry and I swear the Irish have roads which would disgrace a third world country, honestly the worst condition for a major route I have ever seen. Alan has not experienced any third world country roads, to make this comparison, as I have (remembering the 100 mile journey across the Thai-Cambodian border, on an un-metalled road, in a right-hand drive taxi, driving on the right, I would say the Irish roads aren’t that bad, however if the Government had spent half of what the Irish have spent on building their ‘little palaces’ on the roads they would have an excellent road system. We stayed a couple of days in Killarney and cycled and walked for miles, probably covered 30 kilometres in the last few days which for us means sore feet and knees. Still rained at some point every day (Nevermind being overtaken by three Cambodian children on one bike! Today I was over taken, at some speed, by a rather large lady on a bike, Alan was kind and reckoned she must have been one of the ‘fit-fat’.)





Monday 10th August
As we draw to a close the Irish leg of our epic tour, I feel I must comment on the weather, now in Scotland we get our share of slagging about the weather, however it is only fair to say that this applies mainly to the west coast, the east coast is considerable drier. However rarely has a whole month passed where we haven’t had a dry, sunny day. It has rained on us for the whole month! Every day for a whole month! We have not sat out once in the sunshine, nor have we cook one meal outside! A whole month! The weather forecast for Hertford, which we reach on Saturday is predicting 24˚c and sunny.

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Comments

[abby]

weather
i guess you should have stayed in carlingford lough then cos it doesnt appear to be raining there.