We left on Sat 17th Nov and flew to Ireland, cheap as chips for only £30 there and back. We arrived in Dublin and went and hired a car to take us around the awesome country.
We drove into Dublin to have a look and have lunch. It's quite a nice place...when it's not raining! We had lunch, which included a Guinness and Potatoes, to be sure. Jamie was impressed that the Guinness is better in Ireland then in UK or home. Flick and Candice had Guinness with blackcurrant juice in it which made it easier to drink.
We then set off to Ballycastle up north in Nth Ireland that is governed by the UK. It was strange as Candice went to by a cheap bottle of water giving the girl at the counter 50 euros and received £30 pound change. She was arguing with her saying she gave her a 50! But didn't realize she got pounds in change back instead of Euros.
Jamie drove for a few hours to get to Ballycastle and it was dark when we got there. We weren’t sure we would find the Hostel thinking Ballycastle was HUGE town. We dove around the corner and there was a HUGE sign saying Hostel. So we were relieved. We checked in and walked down the street to the local pub and had dinner. Again the food consisting of Guinness and Potatoes! As the pub was VERY local there was a sheep dog sleeping inside with all the farmers having a pint. We were disappointed when we no one played a fiddle, so we went home to bed.
The next day we drove to Coleraine on the way stopping at this castle ruins that we just stumbled across. There were signs saying you weren't permitted to go through but us being the rule breakers we are jumped the fence and were glad we did. It was the prettiest thing we have ever seen and had to climb over barriers to get to the castle but is was just and amazing place. After we had finished there we were walking back up and another couple had jumped the fence to, so we didn't feel too bad.
We then went on to see the Giants Causeway, which is a mass of basalt columns packed tightly together. They are like 'stepping stones' that come from the beach and go down into the sea. Amazing to see, but Candice didn't like it due to it being too clustery.
After that we headed to Galway through Sligo where we were told to make a detour due to the World Rally Championships being on in Sligo and the traffic was bad. We TRIED to go the way the police officer told us but he gave really bad directions and there are SO many roads in Ireland and not enough signs. So we didn't bypass Sligo at all and got stuck in the traffic about a mile down the road, so we shouldn't have even bothered! Jamie was disappointed as he didn't get to see any racing while the WRC where on.
We stayed in Galway overnight and headed into town for dinner, should we even say what it consisted of!! We then had an early night as we were making our way down to Cork the next day.
We left early to as we wanted to go and see some more stuff along the way. There are so many castles in this country that we just pulled up at any one we saw.
We made it to Cork and were really worried about finding the backpackers that Flick had found as we didn't have a Cork map. However with our skills and patience we found it with ease and stayed at the backpackers which had TV! YAY! We went for dinner and could only find this dingy pizza takeaway shop so there weren't any Guinness's with dinner, however we went for a few pints after.
We headed to Blarney were the famous Blarney Stone Castle is. It was a gorgeous, crisp sunny day. We walked all through the grounds and made our way through the castle to the Blarney stone where we all gave it a HUGE smooch. It’s a great view out from up the top of the castle and got some great photos.
We then headed back to Dublin that afternoon to catch our flight, sparing NO minutes.
THE END
