Larne

We had every intention to visit Newgrange and Belfast today. However we learnt that Newgrange is only allowed to be visited with a tour guide (€45 each) and our Belfast campsite is actually located in Larne. We are planning on taking the same route back to Scotland, since it’s the shortest and cheapest route to and from Ireland. Larne is about an hours drive north of Belfast and the drive from Dublin took us nearly 3 ½ hours. When we finally arrived in Larne we decided to book our ferry tickets and not take the train into Belfast. We aren’t entirely disappointed with this decision, as we weren’t too excited about visiting Belfast and there isn’t much to see or do in Belfast either. We purchased our ferry tickets for tomorrow morning at 7:30. It will be a very long day, as we plan to drive to Haltwhistle, a town located along the middle of Hadrian’s Wall and on our way tour 3 EH sites around the area, as well as Hadrian’s Wall.

Dublin

There are no campsites in Dublin so we stayed on the outskirts of the cities ring road. We didn’t know it at the time, but we think we were staying near the town where Andrew stayed when he was in Dublin. Clondalkin is located west of the city and it was about an hours bus ride into town. We were dropped off right in the smack of it, on Aston Quay in the Temple Bar district. From here we traveled across the river to O’Connell Street to find the tourist office and get a better map. Along the way we passed by the incredibly ridiculous, but also extremely tall (120m), monument to Aran sweaters. They say it is a giant knitting needle with the tip being a beam of light and they call it the “Monument of Light”. The tourist office was helpful and even booked us tickets for the Guiness brewery so we wouldn’t have to queue. We then back tracked over the bridge to make our way to Trinity College and the Book of Kells. We opted for the guided tour offered by students for two euros. The tour was informative and fast, apparently just the other day, our guide was giving a tour and was interrupted by Colin Farrel who apparently has a gorgeous girlfriend in the nurses’ school on campus. No celebrities interrupted this tour though. The book of Kells wasn’t all that interesting, but it is just a real old book. From here we stopped by two churches, St Patrick’s and Christ Church. They were nice enough but we have seen so many impressive churches that we are now a bit jaded. Once we arrived at the brewery we commenced our tour and skipped a large portion of it. It was a self guided tour and the only real reason I came here was to drink “the best Guinness of my life”. It was much better than I remember, but I am still not a fan of the stout. I was surprised to learn that Coors Light has more alcoholic content than Guinness. We were getting hungry now, so we made our way to Temple bar to see about a pub. The pub fare is usually fishy, so we had to search a while before we came across a pub with reasonable prices and a decent menu. There are so many stag and doe parties going on that we see large groups of people wearing the same shirts all over the place. Most are locals, but I did see one shirt that said Paul’s international stag party. It would be pretty cool to go all out and take a trip somewhere for the party. After lunch/dinner we made our way down Grafton Street. Julie is still searching for Irish things. I hope she finds everything she is looking for. Oh, I should say that Julie and I both picked up “Irish” drinking shirts to wear on St Patrick’s Day. Our intention for the evening was not to hang out in Temple Bar (Boo-urns) but to visit Aras Chronain – an Irish culture party where they teach you some Gaelic (like how to order a beer), some traditional dance and they also play some traditional music. However, we did some online research before we stepped out for the night and learned that it is more like an Adult education course, not a party like we were told. So we regrettably did nothing this night either. Two nights in Dublin and no pub crawl. I guess I will just have to head back another time and do it right.

Kells Priory and Kilkenny

It was a long drive (for Ireland) to reach Kells Priory, the old ruins where the book of Kells was located before it was moved to Trinity College in Dublin by the monks. The ruins now are mostly occupied by tourists and sheep. Unfortunately there was no parking available for anything taller than a car so we took what photos we could before heading on to Kilkenny. I should mention that the sheep were being herded over to an adjacent field by a guy in a truck and a guy on a Gator. Julie thought it was ridiculous. By the time we arrived at Tree Grove Caravan & Camping Park it was well past four. The castle closed at five and since that was the only site in town besides a church, we had a break and had dinner. We ventured out tonight in hopes of finding a bar with some Irish music on. We were told that it was a sure bet to find a bar, but when we started our search at 9:30, all was quiet. We picked a nice looking pub and had a few pints before heading out only to discover a pub a few doors down playing lively Irish music. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t find this pub first. I wanted some food so we stopped by a fast food place called Supermacs and I had myself one of their signature burgers (think Big Mac with ketchup and no cheese).

Blarney Castle

The walk into town wasn’t as nice as our camping guide suggested so we made the decision to drive in this morning. Thankfully the parking was abundant and free. It was €20 for the two of us to view the castle and kiss the stone. The castle itself is mainly in ruins and isn’t all that impressive of a sight. But you don’t come to Blarney for it’s castle, you come to kiss the Blarney Stone and gain the “gift of gab”. The staircase leading to the top of the castle, where the stone is located, is extremely steep and narrow. Near the top I almost had trouble squeezing through with the backpack on. Julie was just starting to climb the last 3 steps to the top of the castle when her pedometer fell from her waist. It bounced three times before it finally plunged through a large hole in the floor. The pedometer fell nearly 5 stories to the ground. We both thought instantly that it was broken. It has fallen many times from Julie’s hip and occasionally needs encouragement to start counting again. The entire time we were standing in line for the Blarney Stone, Julie watched through more floor openings, hoping no one would steal her pedometer (that’s probably why we never found the old one after loosing it in Pompeii).
The Blarney stone was not quite what we thought (picture a hole in the floor where it meets the wall, the Blarney stone is the piece of wall). The stone itself looked “moist” and it’s rumored that the locals urinate on it. If the stone was more like a large boulder, we probably would have kissed it, but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to kiss the wall of a ruined castle. We both laughed later at the thought of me getting the gift of gab, don’t I already talk too much? When we made our way down the narrow stairs of the castle, Julie was being as patient as she could while we followed a rather large woman down. Fortunately she ducked into a doorway for us to pass by. To Julie’s relief and our total surprise the pedometer was still there and it is working just fine.

Cork

Cork doesn’t have many sites so we took our time getting ready and walking the 2 km into Blarney to catch the bus to Cork. Unfortunately we left without getting the bus schedule from the camp reception office so when we arrived at the bus stop we found out that we would have to wait one hour before the next bus. In order to pass some time we made our way to the Blarney tourist office which happens to be closed on Wednesday’s. Without much left to do, we started browsing in the tourist shops. The bus ride into Cork was short and a little overpriced. Julie and I tend to skip out on museums as they are not very interesting and you miss out on the town itself and since the only suggestions in our guide books about Cork are museums, we were left to fend for ourselves. We decided to follow the crowds of people around some of the city streets and were not rewarded for our efforts. Once you step away from St. Patrick’s street the city becomes grimy and very shady. We did manage to find a few pedestrian only streets but they weren’t as nice as St. Patrick’s. It only took us few hours before we started to get bored. So we began our search for a pub. You would think being in an Irish city it would be easy to find a decent pub, not so. We came across a sports pub, after looking for ½ hour, that had a decent menu. The food was okay but the beer was fantastic. We tried to explore a bit longer before stopping in a self service restaurant for a drink. Afterwards we caught the bus back to the Blarney campsite. While I was typing this blog entry, a gentleman stopped by to ask us about our rig. His rig was a baby version of ours, right down to the colour. We chatted for a bit and found out he was originally from Glasgow, lived in Germany for awhile before settling in a town near Bristol. We didn’t catch his name though.

The Ring of Kerry

I was tempted to drive a complete circle around the Dingle Peninsula but was reminded that the drive around the Ring of Kerry would take about 4 hours. This is a shame, because the scenery is supposed to be stunning. A few movies have been filmed here, one of which was Far and Away. The Ring of Kerry is said to be home to some of Ireland’s best scenery. In addition, the towns are said to be clean, charming and exactly what you’d envision an Irish town to be. We have seen nicer scenery through our tour of Ireland, but that is not to say the Ring isn’t without its beauty. None of the towns seemed worthwhile to stop in, but maybe it is because we are visiting out of season and they don’t have their flower boxes out yet. The drive was long but very worthwhile. We were going to rest in Killarney, the official start of the Ring of Kerry but I vetoed this decision. There was nothing for us to see in Killarney, except its Natural Park. We were only an hour’s drive from Blarney and the Blarney campsite has free showers, unlike the previous ones we have been at. So we drove to Blarney to spend two nights, this way we could visit Cork with a full day and see Blarney castle on our way out.

Dingle/Gallarus

Dingle was our second and last stop for the day. I originally thought we were coming here to visit the local celebrity, Fungie the Dolphin. However, Julie informed me that it was to visit a few pubs, which was just fine with me. However, the campsite in Dingle shut down. This really sucked because they offered a shuttle bus to take you into town for a pub crawl and bring you back too. We went to the tourist office to see about other campsites and found out the closest one was a 15 minute drive away in Gallarus. Our plans for the night failed, so we planned to visit Dingle in the morning before we continued on our way.

Cliffs of Moher

These cliffs are beautiful. The wind however, is another story. It just never stops and it’s incredibly strong. We saw a wedding group having their photos taken while we were there. Besides the cliffs, there are a few shops cut into the hill as well as a visitors centre. After taking a few photos outside we went browsing in the shops. Julie has been looking for Celtic stuff and most recently, a charm bracelet. She managed to find a nice one in the visitors centre.

Galway, The Burrens and Doolin

We haven’t been sticking to our plans of late and today isn’t different. We left hoping to do a hike near Sligo to Knocknarea and maybe visit Maeves tomb (Neolithic mound) but were unable to locate it. We then moved on to Galway only to learn that the campsite won’t be opening until June. We managed to find a place to park and ventured into town. Galway was nice enough, very modern and sort of dirty. We managed to buy a phone card and call home though. Galway was our original pit stop, but since we were too early for the campsite we moved on to the next stop, The Burrens. The Burrens is a large area of exposed limestone that starts near Carrofin and runs into the sea near Doolin. Our camping guide suggests a drive through the area and during the drive we spotted signs for Ailwee Cave. Julie and I saw this cave advertised online when we tried to do research on Ireland while we were still in Burlington. It looked pretty cool then, so we decided to make a stop. It, unfortunately, wasn’t that great. We have seen much better caves; the one in Belgium comes to mind. Afterwards we left for Doolin, which was originally our planned resting place for tomorrow. The drive was only 281km, which is our longest drive so far in Ireland. Doolin wasn’t on the GPS and it’s not surprising as our camping book says that “Doolin is really known as Fisherstreet”. This small village (pop. 200) is literally one street a few km long with a few pubs and some stores. The only real reason for coming here is to catch a ferry to the Aran Islands. It is also a great base for exploring The Burrens and the Cliffs of Moher. If that weren’t enough it is also said that the pubs have the best music in Ireland. We did attempt to have dinner and a few pints at the local pub but were completely dismayed when we couldn’t find a seat. The pub itself wasn’t small, around the size of the Dickens but every single seat was full. Before we considered standing, Julie looked at a menu and determined that we would find nothing of interest to eat and that everything was around €20. However, it wasn’t a total loss as we did hear some music being played. Four guys sitting around a table playing their instruments.

Londonderry, Donegal and Ballyshannon

We had such a great start to the Coastal Road, that we hoped today would be just as good, if not better. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way. The drive to Londonderry was not as scenic as the first section we drove. Sometimes it wasn’t even near the coast. We found parking relatively easy and close to the downtown area of Derry, but decided to skip it based on what we saw. We expected to see an older city, not something that resembled Toronto. The main reason for visiting this town was the wall surrounding the centre. We have seen so many walled cities that we have become jaded, so that is another reason we decided to skip it. Donegal had two sites for us to see, the Castle and a Craft Village. The castle was a small wall and half a tower squished in between two larger buildings. The craft village was not at all what Julie had envisioned, being mostly large sculptures and expensive paintings. With the day being a total loss, we moved onto Ballyshannon for a rest at a campsite. I would have ventured out into Ballyshannon but the campsite was actually quite a distance from the town.