28/05 Ireland

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Saturday 14th may we arrived in ireland.
We have rested up over the weekend, and didn't even go to a pub. We did go for a ten mile hike to see as much of Dublin as possible tho. Our accommodation was a very mellow hostel which once was used as wine cellars so looked really pretty but without the hostel atmosphere. The layout was slightly random, with lots of little rooms which appeared from nowhere. They had a pool table located in a tiny corridor, which did not allow enough room to play, so we didn't even bother with it. 

We have just hopped onto the bus for our 10 day tour and have  realized that we have to drop our standards of this tour compared to the previous one. The previous tour consisted of 27 people, 1 tour guide and everyone under the age of 35. It was the one group the entire time, so we all got to know each other really well. It didn't matter to the tour guide if it was cold or raining or we were tired, there was no sleeping on the bus, and everyone had to get off and get wet together. No activity was cancelled due to the rain, we all just got soaked.


This tour has only just begun, but currently it is 50 odd people, with 50% retiree aged. It is effectively 3 tours in one. With people separating off every few days. In about 2 days Luke and I switch tour guides. the only advantage is that we are staying in hostel accommodation therefore we should be able to meet the young tourist then and have some fun. I have a feeling that most of these guys will not be getting wet. In fact I don't think the tour guide will even get wet. 

Anyway, enough complaining. We are currently on our way to Derry  where we will stay the night. On our way we will stop by drogheda.

When we rocked up to our accommodation in Derry we were all lined up to get our room allocation and we were placed with two other couples from Oz, they are all around our age and have been doing the touring for a while so we all were all on the same page, claire and callun are in Nuc med, Natasha is a blood sucking lawyer and her partner rob who we all love is a chef.

 The hostel had an all you can eat bbq for £5, so everyone was going to have dinner in the beer garden of the hostel. We rocked up 15minutes late and everything was already eaten. So the 6 of us decided that we would attack the local supermarket. We bought pizzas, wedges, garlic bread and chicken drum sticks and a lot of alcohol and had a brilliant and funny night in with awesome fattyboomber food. And then we hit the pubs.

The next morning we went and visited the giant causeway which lee and I had no idea what it was. Turned out to be rocks. It was quite fancy rocks with the beach having round bolders in the water and then suddenly the rocks change into sorta hexagon shaped and so close together that they form steps and even towers. Looks like mother nature was landscaping but apparently its old volcano lava. Afterwards we went to a huge cliff face which is postcard material and there is a rope bridge that you can cross to a different island but it is suspended about 40 meters up. We decided not to cross seeing as though there wasn't really a point to this seeing as though the island which you go to is half a footy field big and it costs 10 £ per person.

That evening we stayed in belfast, bunking up with the same two couples as the night before and had spaghetti bog and played cards. It was a great tea, Good job Rob. it's fantastic traveling with a chef.

The following morning we said good bye to rob and Natasha because they are only doing a 6 day tour and we are doing the tenner.

we started the morning doing a Belfast black taxi tour which when we heard about it we were wondering why can't we just take the bus around town then it was explained that the town is split between Catholics and prodistin and that in 1969 when the bus's were running the grave yard shift it was quite common that these bus's would get hijacked and parked sideways then burnt out to stop the traffic going a certain way. So the bus company refused to do these runs and the locals got a bit annoyed, so the taxi company became the local bus service while the conflicting periods occured. 

It's very confronting to see the conflict which is still occurring. Although it is currently considered 'safe' there were a lot of places were we were not to go. Our hostel was in neutral territory, and the pub which we were told to go to was also considered neutral, however fights started willy nilly over slight comments. Some of the boys from Brisbane walked in on a major bash up in the toilets and had no option but to turn around a leave. Even the taxi tour wasn't confirmed until the last minute depending on the political situation. One of the tour guides mentioned that the murals were starting to be more peaceful, but in the last week they were altering to be violent again, therefore he was expecting something soon. Two days later, when we were in the south there was a bombing. 

While we were there we saw the peace wall, which extends for 2.5 miles, and is still being extended and raised.  We got to sign the peace wall so we also left a bit of Northam behind with a  NBZ.

That afternoon we received a new bus with a driver and headed to the top of Ireland to a place called donegal and then back to Derry. The following morning we hopped back 

Lots have happened but we have been very slack at writing it down, so I am currently trying to remember where we are at and what we have done.
So far we have had a visit from the queen and associated riots, explosions in derry, and a visit from barrack Obama. Ireland is not a boring place to be. 

After the second night in Derry we went to a sleepy little town called anascaul And stayed in a hostel called the Randy little lepracaurn. which was a slack lazy night. The following day we made our way to Killarney. That evening for some weird reason drinking games sounded fun. We played circle of death which went down a treat!?

Anywhooo the tour was great, we enjoyed it. We now have four or five days to kill in Ireland before our flight to Amsterdam so we have decided to head to the west coast of Ireland to Galway which is a student city with quite a few universities. We have also gone up market with staying in a hotel! The place what we are staying at is called the Carlton and is roughly two km's out from the town center but this place does have a gym and heated pool so it's great! 

We arrived in Galway by bus with being told not to go by train for there train network became obsolete in the 60's when trucks came around. So the bus was fun fun! Since being here we have not seen much for we are chilling out and enjoying the hotel and it's facilities. So far we have gone into town twice and seen the movie the hangover two and also had STEAK!!! Yes yes it did cost an arm and a leg but it was a great tea.

Today is Sunday and we have a show to go to this evening with Irish dancing and music. Should be good. Tomorrow we have found out is a public holiday and we are heading back to Dublin to stay back in the hostel for the night for we are flying out early Tuesday.

We both were looking forward to Ireland the most with the greenery, little pubs and friendly locals with quirky accents but found it very similar to Scotland which we didn't really know what to expect!  Ohhh it rains a lot here too. We thought we were escaping winter but no no we haven't.

I am so sorry that we haven't posted any photos, we have been trying but it seems that I am unable to post photos on here because the iPad doesn't recognize the upload software to post the photos. Annoying, might try and post them on Facebook instead.....


Oo a roo, hope federals are going okay and shelbsta too

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