Tres_crays

After 48 hours in transit and very little sleep, we finally made it to Ireland! Thankfully, Ange's parents were waiting to greet us when we arrived in Belfast, at the ready to look after the poor weary travellers. After a good nights sleep we set off to have a look around Belfast and discover some of Ange's family history in nearby County Downs. We did a bit of roadside blackberry picking (which nearly made Marts throw-up twice... either over consumption or spraying, we're not quite sure but they got canned after the 2nd time). That night we stayed in the most gorgeous B&B. A beautiful Irish homestead with stunning views across the Northern Irish countryside! The greens of Ireland are so rich that you have to see them to believe them. It's no wonder why they call it the Emerald Isle. After a traditional Irish fry up for breakfast, we hit the road and headed for the North coast. The sun was shining and the scenery was magic! The cliffs were just massive, and the colours almost indescribable! Some of the little coastal towns were coloured in soft pastels and looked like the Irish equivalent of the Mediterranean. On our drive, we stumbled across one of the many castle ruins, although this one was not really accessible to tourists due to the precarious cliff face that you had to get down to reach it. Precarious cliff face... what's that? We scaled the steps and fences down the cliff to reach this amazing slice of history perched out in the ocean on it's own cliff, amongst the crashing waves! Amazing!! Marts then overcame her fear of heights (briefly) on the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge (although the picture of terror on her face in the photo may suggest otherwise)! We also visited the Giants Causeway and the oldest whiskey distillary in the world (but unfortunately the idea of whiskey is much better than it's taste... yuck) Think we'll stick to a good Irish pint. We've now made it to the Republic of Ireland which is very different to the North. The landscape is a lot more barren in parts, and we experienced that in the extreme this morning when we got lost and eventually realised that we'd been driving around and around the same rocky bog of an island for a couple of hours. In our defense, all signs were in Gaelic and it wasn't until Ange stopped to ask someone that we realised we were going around in circles! So we gave up on trying to get where we were going and set off for the Ring of Kerry on the South West coast. So tonight we're staying in Killarney (and are gearing up for our first real taste of Ireland's night life as the jet lag has finally eased). Tomorrow we'll visit the Ring of Kerry and then we head to Cork to visit Youngy. Tuesday and Wednesday we'll spend in Dublin, before flying to London for Marts' conferences. Photos to come (will have to wait until we download the first lot onto CD) and more stories soon! A and M