Hello everyone. Year 4 of travel adventures has started. Guess this is getting to be a habit! If you're on the ball you will have noticed this is a different blog site. Dawn decided that this one was easier for transferring photos. Let us know if you don't find it as user friendly as our previous blog site. Also, be sure to check out the photo gallery for each blog along the way!
After a lazy summer in Spain, with an assortment of guests who got taken to the usual places, including our favourites of Ronda and Istan (you've already seen enough photos of those!!), we met up with Dawn's Uncle Dick & Aunt Gitte in Cork where we spent a week and half traveling around Co. Cork, sleeping in a real castle in Castletownshend, and Co. Kerry where we stayed in Killarney.
Castle where we stayed in Castletownshend. In the village there was also a great pub/restaurant where we discovered Smithwicks beer, which became our choice for the time in Ireland (just couldn't get used to the heaviness of Guinness).
For the final 11 days we stayed in the lovely town of Dingle, where we met up with Brian's brother David and sister-in-law Bridget who had travelled out for a week to join us. Dingle has a lot to offer and we had a fantastic time learning about Irish Trad music, Irish pubs, leprechauns and other mystical things with Bridget's brother, sister and other relatives who live in Dingle. The other thing about Southern Ireland is the beauty of the area. We both agreed that it matched Bay of Islands and that's saying something.....
After Ireland we had a couple more weeks in Spain before going off to UK for the most exciting event of the year. Brian got to walk daughter Eloise down the wedding aisle on September 24th! It was a glorious day, with the wedding taking place in a small 14th Century church just outside of Bath. As you can see Eloise looked stunning and Brian just beamed with pride and nerves... Everybody had a wonderful time at the reception and party that followed in a local hotel. A lot of sore heads the next morning and for some even the traditional cure of a full English breakfast couldn't produce it's usual miracle cure.
This blog's a little late being issued, so we're now into leg 1 of the 2011-12 trip. First stop was a 6 hour lay-over in Delhi. Hmmm. Luckily they have a new terminal so it wasn't too bad. Then onto Nepal for 30 days, which includes a trip to Pokhara to work and support a local school! That will be the next blog, coming soon......... (I hope).
Cheers to everybody!
Dawn & Brian
