10/07/09
Joined a 3 day coach tour of south Ireland with Shamrockers, starting with a visit to The Rock of Cashel, Mitchelstown Caves and Blarney Castle to receive the gift of the gab by kissing a dirty brick in the castle wall while supported upside down! All this time there would be prolonged showers with short fine intervals, no doubt this is why the Ireland countryside is so lush and green. Our overnight stop would be Killarney.
11/07/09
Second day of the tour and this time it would rain the whole day, I had not seen this much rain since living in Auckland but enough whining about the weather, starting to sound like some other people across the Irish Sea.
Along we went on the scenic coastal route while viewing the most western point of continental Europe towards the fishing town of Dingle, where Fungi the dolphin resides. An ice cream to enjoy the liquid sunshine before catching a glimpse of “the sleeping giant and three sisters” (an island whose contours look like a big belly person asleep and 3 hills). Then a short ferry ride across the Shannon River towards the Cliffs of Mohar. Our stop that night was Doolin where I had some Irish stew in a local pub watching the weird weird sport of hurling (cross between AFL and hockey).
12/07/09
Our last day of the tour started with trips to Clonmacnoise (an old monastery) and Burren plateau which is a raised ancient limestone seabed.
However our first activity was a quick stop to walk around a fairy ring, an abandoned mound ruin like a ring where the middle had scrub inhabited by fairies, true! We were sternly warned not to walk through the middle otherwise something bad could happen…
Now the coach we were on was not the most modern and in fact there was a problem as it could not engage 1st gear from the 2nd day onwards. While on a slight incline it started to roll backwards towards a parked car while trying to pull out onto the road outside Clonmacnoise. Everyone out and a big stone for leverage did the trick but there was only inches between the bus and the car.
One more stop for some Irish whisky at Locke’s Distillery Museum at Kilbeggan and then back to Dublin where I will catch the overnight ferry back into London.
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| South Ireland |
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