MONDAY 3RD – SUNDAY 9TH
The start of a full working week for me, and more work for Em. The days are starting to get noticeably shorter here, with it getting light at just after 7:00am, and dark by about 5:30pm. Still we have now not had rain since last Wednesday, so maybe we brought the dry weather of the Gold Coast with us. Work was uneventful for both of us really. Tuesday was exciting watching the US presidential election, along with the rest of the world really. Wednesday, a day I don't work, was spent taking Marie to the airport, and then going on the hunt to find nice sausages that aren't pork. Mission impossible - still haven't found any. I thought this part of the world was supposed to do really good sausages.
On Friday night after work we met up with Alannah and Grant, friends from Palmerston North, who are now living in Cork. They came to our house for a cup of tea, ended up staying for dinner, and we had a good catch up. It was great to see them.
Saturday we decided we should actually go exploring so we went for a drive, with the main purpose to go and see the “Rock of Cashel” in County Tipperary. We took a round about route so we could visit a few small towns. The weather was appalling, pouring with rain and quite windy.
Anyway we got off to a great start. We had been driving for about 20 minutes when we came to a sign on the road saying road closed, with a digger parked across it, and they were doing road works on both lanes. So we had to turn back and start again! Typical of the Irish, not to give any warning about these things.
We headed due east across to Ballycahill and Thurles, then we started South and went to “Horse and Jockey”. This is the actual name of a small town. We stopped here and had seafood chowder and fantastic thick-cut hot chips at the pub, then got back on the road.
We hadn't been driving long when we came around a corner and were greeted by the very grand sight of a massive cathedral on top of the Rock of Cashel. When we arrived the sun came out and it was extremely quiet (tourist-wise) so we were very lucky. It is such a grand site, dating to around 1130AD. It is perched right on top of the rock with views on every side of the beautiful green Irish landscape. It was built entirely of stone, including the roof, which is no longer there. After a good look around we decided to get out of the icy cold wind and back to the comforts of the car. Our “Rough Guide to Ireland” book had the “Rock of Cashel” as one of the top 30 things to do or see in Ireland, and it was definitely worth the trip. From Cashel we heaed back to Limerick including driving through Tipperary.
On Sunday we headed into town to get a few things. I wanted to get new shoes as my current shoes have got holes in them, but we found out a large proportion of shops are closed here on Sunday. We finished the day eating my first attempt at a lamb curry which tured out not too badly.
