Mike and I packed for Ireland on Wednesday night. Mike was going to carry the checked luggage, and I had my backpack with essentials for the days work, and things I didn't want any airline to lose or send to Guatemala. I got to work and excitedly waited for the end of the day. I had booked a taxi to take me from Ashford to Gatwick at 5:30pm, at a cost of around 35 pounds.
It all worked out well. In fact, it only took me 45 minutes to get to Gatwick. I was so early the check-in wasn't open, so I did Mike proud and ate some Maccas for dinner. Unlike Mike, I only eat burgers at MacDonalds every six months or so (although I do eat chicken nuggets there more often - but still not anywhere near Mike's average). I sat there and munched on a cheeseburger while reading my book until the check-in opened.
We had tickets with the low budget airline Ryanair. My plane was a Sun special (The Sun being a British newspaper), so it was a 'flying billboard' - to quote Mike. Turns out he was on the same plane three hours earlier. It's an open seating system, where you get any seat as you get on. It creates a sort of 'cattle class' feel as people tend to rush to get a decent seat. I ended up with a seat on the window towards the back, but I got a pretty good view through the breaks in the cloud cover. I read my book (on Elizabeth I) and thought all flights should be 50 minutes duration, as it is very civilised.
I got into Dublin around 9:30 pm, and got a call from Mike after various text messages saying how to meet him and Sally and Andrew in Dublin city centre. Unfortunately I did not hear him right, and thought I needed to get to the Connelly train station. When the helpful bus driver let me off as close as possible to there at the bus station, I missed Mike. I rang him to no avail and promptly set off in the direction of the train station where I thought he was waiting. Clumping around with dodgey shoes did not help my mood, when I wondered what sort of area the train station was, and was it likely I would meet any nutters.
We met up soon enough, and ended up on a train to the B&B. Sally, Andrew and Mike had spent a completely unproductive evening chasing telephone conference calls to New Zealand for Sally's unexpected job interview. This was a saga of biblical proportions, for no reason other than a lack of competence from what I could see. Sally's schedule was known to her colleagues well before she left, and yet they managed to schedule her interview for the start of her conference in Geneva. Due to technical difficulties (not able to contact people as their cell phone was not switched on), the saga dragged on, as sagas are liable to do. Trouble is, sagas are supposed to be epic tales of heroism, courage and other (brings tall, blond Vikings to mind) inspiring traits, and a saga created through lack of organisation, skills and forethought just doesn't cut the mustard.
We got to our B&B around 10:45pm or so. Pretty nice place. It was in Glenegeary, about half an hour out of Dublin, and featured an en-suite and a lovely firm bed - but no towels. I think due to our late arrival, the stunned B&B man forgot. I hope they don't think we stole them, as we used our own towel for our shower the next morning.
Our arrival called for a nice cup of tea, and Mike prepared his cellphone to use Sally's new SIM card so she could call New Zealand the next morning. It worked fine, but cost her a pretty penny (about 150 pounds). Hopefully she can claim the cost back.
The next morning, we breakfasted with scrambled eggs and salmon, tea and toast. Very pleasant - looking out over the garden. Sally had to rush off to her room for her interview at 8am, and Andrew and I set off to pick up the hire car in Dublin. we caught the train in and walked through a park across the road from Oscar Wilde's house. There was a ceramic statue of Wilde sitting back on a huge rock. It looked really good.
We picked up the car from hertz in record time - about 15 minutes. Just as it started to spit a bit. But that was the only rain we saw the whole break. Andrew drove out of the street, wondering why people behind us were tooting like mad, only to find a barrage of traffic from a set of lights bearing down on us. Yep, we had headed up a one way street the wrong way. We then hurtled into a side street that was also one way, but managed to join traffic flowing correctly before anyone tried to move down past us. Quite exciting. We did a short stint around the block before we ended up on the same street, but in the right direction!
A bit of navigation by the seat of my pants, and realising that Cul de Sac really does mean a dead end regardless of how it looks, we fell into the road where the B&B was. Sally had finished her interview by then, so we packed up and set off. We aimed to wander down the coast for a bit, stopping at almost immediately at the next town to visit the ruined church there. Well, Sally and I did, while Mike and Andrew muttered something about checking out the hardware stores. They did good though, coming back with munchies for the road.
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The tower Sally & I climbed gave a great view over the bay and into Dublin. We also spied Mike and Andrew wandering down the main street looking for power tools. We read about the history of the area in displays within original rooms, and thought it was IR2 pounds well spent. There was a great graveyard too, with headstones dating back to the 1820s (I'm sure some were older, but the inscriptions were difficult to read). Sally took a few photos, so I can't wait to see them.
Driving to our next stop, we came across a truck stopped in the middle of a roundabout. It was transporting some furniature, but when it had hooned around the roundabout, its door had opened and spewed a desk, a set of drawers, some chairs and other bits and bobs in a circular arc through the roundabout. Very clever! We went inland briefly to look at the highest waterfall in Ireland. You had to pay to get in, so Andrew called it the 20 dollar waterfall.
Very lovely it was too. We took more photos, and lazed in the sun for a while before travelling through the town where Ballykissangel was filmed (nobody has seen this show, so we couldn't tell what it looked like), and the Avoca Handweavers shop where Mike & I bought a mortar and pestle for IR18.95. I've been looking for one for a while, so when I saw this bigger one for cheaper than I had seen them in London, I thought it would make a lovely momento of Ireland. Not that it's covered in shamrocks or anything. Just plain white. I must crush up some herbs in it for tonight's meal. Use it in anger.
Then we headed out to the coast again, and had lunch in a pub there frequented by golfers I believe. There were golf courses all the way down that part of the coast. The pub was a huge barn-like place, but it served good pub food. I munched my way through buffalo wings (from chickens!) and a baked potato that was really yummy. Mike had a Guinness and Andrew, who was driving, wished he could have a Guinness. While we were there, we heard a news item on the radio that just seems to typify how the world perceives the Irish. IR100,000 pounds fell off the back of a security truck in Dublin, and went missing. All wrapped in plastic. A few days later we heard that the money turned up in a church, minus a finders fee of about IR20,000.
We wandered through roads almost at random, dawdling our way down to Wexford. Unfortunately, the Irish have a haphazard approach to road signs, and they either inundate the intersections with a multitude of signs, or have none. And sometimes they will use different colour signs, depending on mood. They also have speed limit signs in miles per hour, and distances in
a) kilometres
b) miles
c) Irish miles
and you can only tell which is which by judging the age of the signs (although the metric (and probably EU funded) signs have the unit added). Not as easy task to navigate. I say this, as it was my job on this first day to navigate, being in the passenger's seat. And at one point I had us going 20 kms in the opposite direction to where I thought we were. But the scenery was pleasant and I actually enjoy going down roads that are off the track. Although at one point, after getting hopelessly lost in Wexford (Mum and Robert - remember when we did that looking for a laundry there? We went past those streets again this time! It was so deja vu, such narrow streets with no signs at all.), we ended up on a road leading to a quarry. We took some photos (honest - it was a photogenic little quarry) and after Mike scouted out the road ahead, we decided to retrace our steps and climb an inviting little crag of rock. From there we had a spectacular view over a plain, and we could see the road beckoning that I was trying to navigate onto from the depths of Wexford.
We followed the road with the view mapped in our minds (it was much better than the pathetic Collins Map of Ireland), and joined up with the major road to New Ross - our next B&B destination. This B&B was lovely (Riverview?), although the miniature windmill complete with whirling vanes and several garden gnomes were met with different levels of approval. Still, the back yard was pretty, with a lovely conservatory for the guests to use.
We ate dinner at a local pub. The chips were incredibly fatty (it reminded me of a childhood trip to Hamilton where we had a disastrous visit to a chippie - the chips were so awful I seem to recall my father disposing of them in a most 'Untidy Kiwi' way - out the window with disgust! From then on, Hamilton has been synonymous with awful chips - although that memory was tempered more recently by an excellent Hunters & Collectors concert that we went to see in a pub near the university.) and I couldn't eat any. But the rest of my meal was OK.
We wandered back the long way to the B&B and went to bed quite early that night. South Park was on TV and Mike watched it for a bit.
Next morning we set of for Hook Head. A fascinating piece of trivia. The saying 'By Hook or by Crook' comes from Oliver Cromwell when he was planning to invade this neck of the woods. There is a town called Crook nearby that could provide a safe landing for an invasion, or at Hook Head itself. So he would invade from one of the places, or the other. Hook Head peninsula has a wonderful history. We stopped off and looked at ruins, bought a cake from a country market, and ate it overlooking a wonderful cliff. This was on the way to Hook Head lighthouse where we got a tour of the lighthouse all to ourselves. It is mostly in its original twelfth century condition (although the passionate tour guide seemed to be slightly cross that 'lay lighthousekeepers' did things like enlarge windows to let in more light), but a beacon has been at this point since about 400AD (I think that's the right date).
Leaving this gorgeous peninsula, we stopped off at Tintern Abbey - in ruins like its namesake on the Welsh border. We wandered around the outside, but did not pay the IR2 pound cost to enter. The grounds had a cute wee stone bridge over the head of the estuary where a small river ran into it. There was an old round keep that Andrew poked his head out of, and Sally took photos of that!
We took a vehicular ferry across to Passage East munching on strawberries from a roadside seller. It was a short journey, but meant we got to Waterford quickly. We decided to wander around the Waterford Crystal showroom, but not do a tour. I rather fancied buying a little vase as a souvenir, but Mike didn't seem that keen. It was a bit overpowering to see so much crystal in one place. The American tourists were going ballistic - I overheard one woman with a salesperson in tow saying 'I'll have one of them, and one of them, and two of them' before I moved out of hearing range. Although we didn't buy anything this time, I think next time I will get a vase or maybe some glasses. Particularly as Mike saw them in Cork airport and liked some glasses there.
After a short stop in Waterford, we travelled across to Cork via a walk in Dungarven. When travelling this way with Mike and my parents we stopped off for lunch at this wee town on our first day. I think Sally & Andrew also thought it was cute. Ireland have taken to painting their houses lovely bright colours and I really like it. I've decided bright yellow is the colour to have. This town has brightly coloured buildings along the waterfront and it looks very attractive. We also saw a loud wedding party in cars - they were tooting their horns constantly and driving in circles around the town. Probably as lost as we tend to be in the towns.
We drove through Cork and found the Edelweiss B&B run by mad Irish Germans. There was a very steep road running up from the B&B that looked too inviting soon wee hooned up there for a look around, and nearly got lost. It was the oldest of the B&Bs we stayed in, but our room in the attic was pleasant. It was about 2 miles (are they Irish miles?) from Blarney. We had dinner there as the owner is a master chef. It was a little disappointing, although my poached salmon was very nice. Mike was told off by Mrs Hempel for saying cheers as a thanks. She was a little mad. Mike and Andrew went off to have a Guinness in the local pub, while Sally & I went to our respective bedrooms. Sally woke me at 11:45 wondering where Andrew was. I said they had not come back yet, but told her to go to sleep and not worry. It can't have been much later when Mike finally arrived. He wanted to tell me all about this bloke they had talked to in the pub, but I was asleep before I had heard anything.
Next morning we heard about it at breakfast. As the Irish are famous for the blarney, the local man had chatted to them for ages. He even had a connection to New Zealand. I can't remember all the details, but I'm sure Mike could enlighten you. We had the best pancakes for breakfast. They were little, but thick, and we had plenty.
We visited Blarney Castle after breakfast. It was a lovely day, and the castle gardens looked very nice. I can't believe how many people were there. We had a small wait at the top of the castle (no one wanted to kiss the stone so we were free agents to enjoy the view from the top).
One the way out of Blarney Castle we watched people crossing the bridge over a wee stream. There were many coins in the stream and we were curious as to how many people throw coins in, and what type of person does it. However, our attempts at analysing the statistics were thwarted by flaws in our counting technique and we certainly didn't want to stay there until all visitors had left to complete our statistical analysis. We also came to the conclusion that Heisenburg's Principle was at work, as our act of observing this (rather obviously as we were camped on the grass in the sun directly opposite the bridge) meant that people's behaviour was modified (people were very shy about throwing coins when others are watching. And people's techniques differed too. Women sort of surreptitiously dropped them in from a lowered hand, and men did some fancy coin flick into the air. Most odd.).
We left and headed towards our next B&B close to Mizen Head on another peninsula. This was in Goleen, but we were taking the long way there. Navigation had passed to Mike now, and we were armed with a new map from Hook Head lighthouse that just seemed to be laid out better. Kinsale was our first stop, but to this day we still don't know how the locals pronounce the name. We varied between Kin'sa'le, and Kin'sale.
Any which way you pronounce it, the Lonely Planet called it Ireland's gastronomic capital. Enough to warrant a lunch stop we thought. After parking, we wandered through brightly coloured buildings in the picturesque wee village (just as LP had said). Having a huge range of choice for eating establishments, we settled on a new one called Pisces. I had a fabulous couple of crab and salmon fishcakes (which reminds me - Mum, I need a copy of Margaret Thatcher's salmon fishcake recipe again - the ones Dennis likes so much. Oh, and while you're there, the scalloped potato one and the tuna slice one.) and everyone else seemed to enjoy their choices too.
We looked into an awesome antique shop. It had a fabulous wooden desk for a mere 2500 pounds. I dropped a hint to Mike that it would look great in our library one day. I think he noticed. They also had some antique brass telescopes which rather take my fancy too. But we left after that, to travel further down the peninsula. At one stage we took a wrong turn (don't know how that could have happened) and ended up going up a farm track. Another time, (whilst looking for the stone circle) we followed a sign that said 'Fireplaces for sale'. We drove into a driveway, turned around and drove out. There was a woman at the letterbox checking what we were doing, and when I looked at the lounge room window, a man was there with binoculars checking us out in minute detail. Don't know what he made of a laughing bunch of tourists like us. We waved politely, and hopefully apologetically, as we passed.
Next on the list was a standing stone circle. Cool! But we got lost and ended up at a fantastic primitive farming community. I can't rememebr how old it was, but they lived in mud houses in groups of about 20 - 25. There was a food pit - a solutrean. So we scrambled through that in the pitch black. A man came to tell us all about it. He was fascinating and had obviously worked on the project for some time. I think he had a hankering to live back then. I think it'd be Ok for about two days, then I'd be dying for a shower.
After that experience we could pick out ancient farm circles in the countryside like old experts (OK, I admit, the man had told us where to look. If he hadn't have done so, we would have missed it.). Now for the stone circle, with the detour to the fireplace selling house first of course, as mentioned before. It was most excellent - I thought it was cute. It would have been around 5 metres in diameter, and the largest stone would have been around 1 metre tall. It had a lovely view out to sea. Some girl was there communing with some spiritual mother earth, and she drew patterns in the gravel in the centre of the circle. Whatever makes her happy - and she certainly seemed happy. The site also contained a natural spring. What they had done in days gone by (long gone!) was line a pit with stones, let it fill with water from the spring, then throw in hot stones to bring it to boil. Very effective and they would cook meat like that. The man at the ancient farm house told us they would then bathe in the water. I reckon that would be worse!
We drove through gorgeous countryside towards Goleen (the map hindered things by covering the roads we were on with a tourist blurb so Mike navigated us to an interesting town that happened to be a dead end) and when we got to Goleen, we found we were staying in a very nice B&B with a restaurant. It was called Harbour View, and overlooked Heron Cove. The tide was out, so mud flats were all we could see. We had a view of gorse bushes from our room. It was more like a hotel rather than a B&B, but it was clean and tidy. We ate in the restaurant and I had a great seafood platter with crab toes as the highlight. A heron came down to fish while we watched the sun disappear. We tried to go for a walk, but the road we took was blocked in the first instance, and the next road wound away from where I wanted to go. So, back to the rooms for a spot of Gaelic Football on the TV.
Now, when I first switched it on, I thought it was Aussie Rules. But, the differences are obvious enough. I watched it and quite enjoyed it. Breakfast was great. I had poached eggs and bacon. Mike just had sausages but no tomato sauce. He chased the woman for quite a while tracking down the sauce. I made a comment later in the day about how impersonal this B&B was, and how it was more like a hotel. Somehow it was mentioned that the lady this morning was nicer than the one from last night. Sally & Mike thought it was the same woman each time, and were dumbfounded that it was a different woman. Andrew & I thought it was obvious. Knowing Mike, I blame the lack of coffee on the trip - this was the first place with real coffee.
A scenic driving day followed. We started by looking at the point of Mizen Head itself. The most south-westerly part of Ireland. I loved the rugged cliffs here and we even spotted some seals playing in the water near a fishing boat. We didn't pay the IR2 pound entry fee to the extreme point, but it was marvellous where we were. Further inland we climbed over a pass and had a wonderful view back over the bays and hills. Down the other side were tunnels carved out of the rock that just matched the size and shape of a tourist bus. Coincidence? I think not.
A road sign beckoned Mike to a motor museum. A couple had obviously ploughed their savings into buying cars and restoring them. There were two old motorbikes too. A real enthusiasts place. Well worth the look we gave it. We headed back to Cork over a marvellous pass which I can't comment on as I fell asleep in the back seat on Mike's shoulder. It was decided, as I dozed lightly, to have dinner in Kinsale again as it is on the road to the airport where Mike & I were flying out of that evening. We were there early, around 5:15pm, and nothing much opened until 6pm which would be too late for our flight. So, we found a pub and we ate perfectly good bar food. Quite a good menu really. Must be the gastronomic capital indeed.
We were nice and early for the flight. It was sad to say goodbye to Sally & Andrew and leave them in that wonderful country in holiday mode. We had to steel ourselves to work the next day. It took us 50 minutes to get from Cork to Stansted airport, and three hours to travel the 26 miles from Stansted to Hammersmith! Train travel! Don't talk to me about it. I'm buying a motorbike the first opportunity I get. Not that it would have helped us here.
So, there you go. A summary of Ireland in four days. Mind you, that's twice as long as Mike's last holiday there. He's seeing Ireland in small slices.
