7 day Shamrockers Tour

G'day everyone!

Well it's currently late Sunday afternoon and I'm sitting in my hostel in Dublin. Last night here before Kim, Holly and I head for Edinburgh, Scotland at 6am in the morning.

I have had an awesome time in Ireland, it certainly is a place well worth seeing. In fact not just seeing, but immersing yourself in. The culture, the history, the music and the drinking! Everyone is having a good time in Ireland, it doesn't matter if they are a tour guide telling you the same stories that they have told the last 100 tour groups, they are having a great time. Even the bus drivers are telling you jokes as they drive you around, just great!

So anyway, hopefully this will be a quick blog of my Shamrockers tour:

Well, up bright and early last Saturday morning and registered for our tour. Met the tour guide, Danny who is Dublin Born and Bred, (so it's great to have local guides!) and our driver Brenda, who could actually give any rally driver a run for their money... the roads are not the same here as in Europe! They are very narrow and windy... but that doesn't mean we take it slow, it just means that the brakes get well used!
Anyway, straight on the bus, and yes, we called it a bus as it only had 30 or so seats. There were 26 of us tour mates and most of them were Aussies too!
I have to say that i am very lucky to have been on 2 tours with the best bunch of people on both. There wasn't one person on the tour who wasn't their for a great time and who didn't get along with the rest of the group.

So i have a map with all of the destinations we went to on it, but basically, we headed straight off to Tipperary, and it's not as far as the song makes out you know... We also visited the Mitchelstown Caves which were pretty cool. Over to Cork and to the Castle that is home to the Blarney stone. We clikbed up the top of the castle, which is very well preserved and still has the little secret passages and things that they used when and if there was a seige. There was also a murder room, where if someone managed to breach the wall, they be stuck in this small room and boiling oil would be poured on them! Very nice...

I kissed the blarney stone and have received the gift of Eloquent speech, though i'm still waiting for it to kick in.... then we walked around the castle grounds and it really is a beautiful place. Great veiws of the countryside all around.

We spent tonight in Killarney where apparently there is a 3:1 ratio of guys to girls, however due to the rediculous number of english hen's nights in Ireland, it was about 10:1 in the other direction!
We went to a local pub and watched Kerry (local county team) get thrashed by Cork (rival county) and had dinner in the pub, then we headed off to see an Irish story teller, who sang and told jokes and drank guinness like no one should then hit the night clubs.... It was a Saturday night after all.

On Sunday, we stopped off at the Killarney lookout then wound our way through the country and along the coast to the Dingle peninsula, On the way we stopped at some Bee-hive huts, which are ages old and we also stopped at a beautiful beach, though i don't believe it is ever warm enough to swim here.
Back to Dingle for lunch, then we drove to the Western most point of Ireland, (therefore Europe) and walked to the top of a fantastic lookout. After this we crossed the Shannon River by ferry and headed to tonights stop in Ennis. Most of the tour mates cooked up a storm in the kitchen and then i went to bed and enjoyed my quiet room - Just me.... and 2 fella's who went out for drinks.

The next day we headed to a Fairy Ring in the county of Clare (i think). These people are very supersticious and even made their government with petitions move proposed road so that it wouldn't affect the fairies and leprechauns. We also went to this ancient stone thingy - which is a porthole to the next life. This is where the leprechauns live, no not in the next life but in the area called Burren(?) so if you see a cloud of dust appear beside you, you must take off your left shoe and throw it through the cloud of dust and hopefully you'll hit him and make him drop what he's carrying!
Today we also drove to the Cliffs of Moher, which you'll know of when you see the photos. This is also where the Princes Bride was filmed, the Cliffs of Insanity! It's an unbelieveable drop straight into the Ocean and there is a little castle perched on top of the cliffs. Just amazing scenery.

After walking the cliffs, we headed for lunch in Lahinch, then to Galway for the night. In Galway, we had time to have a look around the town and we had another cook up tonight as it's cheaper and so sociable. After a few rounds of UNO, it was out to a pub for drinks, where there was an attempted JIG off with the locals then we hit the night clubs again.

The following day, it was our drivers' day off, so we caught a coach then ferry to the Island of Aran, off the coast of Ireland...
It was a quaint little place, with some awesome scenery. Population of the Island is around 900. 800 of who work in tourism ha ha ha.
We hired ourselves Bicycles and peddled our deadly treadly's around the island. We saw a seal colony, and a few other exciting things, before heading up the hill to see a Prehistoric Fort. It is up the massive hill and i can't describe it, it's just amazing that 1) it was built 2)it's still standing! The sheer drop off the side of the cliff was like 200metres, or something. A long way anyway!

We then had to peddle all the way back around the Island in the rain to our hostel. It proceeded to rain all night, but as we we having an enjoyable night inside, it was no problem.

On Wednesday, we got up early and caught the Ferry back to the mainland and headed off to Derry. I have decided that i will call it Derry, as opposed to Londonderry, because i now know the arguement behind it all!

I'll leave it there for now, because i have to get to bed as i will be getting up at 4am to catch the plane to Scotland. I also can't remember what we did on the way to Derry, so i'll have to go think about it!

Love you all!

Sheri xox