Well Jenny and I pretty well covered the southern part of Ireland in the last week. We took off to Galway

Colourful Galway

a little later than expected due to an argument with the evil car-rental company Sixt who expected me to pay another 276 Euro on arrival (after the £120 already laid out) despite my receipt that said there was nothing else to pay. But that's not for rental sir, that's a surcharge because of your age. It boggles my mind how they think that a surcharge for renting a car isn't part of the cost which were all paid. Madness. We ended up swapping to Budget which got us a much better deal and only added 34 Euro to their all inclusive quote. Galway was nice and quaint with a good example of small roads and brightly coloured shopfronts. I was glad for a rest after the only real driving I have done in 7 months (save for driving Lorraine's car in Brighton). That night we stayed in Doolin and visited the famous Gus O'Connor's Pub where we listened to some traditional local music (video 6.1Mb). On Tuesday we saw the very impressive Cliffs of Moher

The Cliffs Of Moher

, The Burren and a

Poulnabrone Passage Tomb

passage grave. The cliffs were my favourite part of it, totally awe-inspiring, and as you'd expected I took two boat loads of photos which I will sort through later. That night was at Barron's Bunker Bar and hostel, somewhere near Ballyduff. Seeing as there was no-one else in the main hostel the owners gave us a room in their house and the full run of their kitchen :-)

   Wednesday was the Dingle Peninsula.

O'Connor's Pass

Between sheets of rain and really nice rainbows we crossed O'Connor's pass to descend on Dingle from the north. Then we did a loop around the area (involving a long drive down a muddy track where I'd never take a car owned by someone that I liked) and climbed a small hill to view the incredible coastline from higher up. It really was just as I expected the west coast of Ireland to be and I loved it.

The most westerly point

After watching the foamy sea on the most westerly point we could find (and missing sunset because of the clouds, we returned to base.

   The next day we drove the Ring of Kerry and dropped by Valencia Island to see the Skellig Rocks. It was rainy at times but mostly it showed southern Ireland in a wonderful light. After driving through Kilarney National Park (with more great views) we raced over to Blarney to kiss a rock.

Me kissing the Blarney Stone

Both Jenny and I did it. There was only one other group up there and only the dad didn't lean backwards over the wall. He said he had done it before on a school trip and he had a bad back now. hmmm. We very nearly stayed in a bad hostel that night, but we decided to face the owner and tell him we wanted to leave (though we had cooked dinner there already). He didn't even get out of his chair and waved us cheerily on our way. We finally found the excellent Midleton Hostel, which was totally brilliant in every way, including having no other guests at all. Travelling in winter is good. The weather does suck a bit, but everything still works and the countryside is still very green.

Kells Priory

   Seeing as we were getting close to Dublin with a day to spare a lot of Friday was taken up doing the scenic route to Kilkenny. I don't know what a priory is for, but Kells Priory seems big and must have been pretty important in it's day. The ruins are lots of fun to climb around and over, and it has have a big enclosed field for the inmates (monks?) to play rugby. Also impressive but basically ignored is the huge old mill on the river next to the priory. A substantial building in any country, but quite massive for the Irish countryside.

Glendalough

   On Saturday we went to Glendalough. It's highly recommened by The Lonely Planet, and both of us. To start with there is a really old church and round tower, the only surviving double-arched entry to a monastry and some grave stones. All the stones I can remember had IHS on them (perhaps the Irish equivalent of RIP?) but one particularly stuck in my mind. Walter Byrne (Lorraine, is this another spelling of Burn?) born in 1644 and died 1750! What a legend. With none of the preparations that the signs wanted us to take we set off on a 9km hike over the mountain. It started with a quick ascent next to a water fall before going onto a wooden path winding up in between the pine trees, which gave me plenty of time to wax lyrical about Rotorua's Luge and the time Mark, Peter and I got wedged in at the top :-). Some people along the path we really over prepared for it, we looked totally casual as we strolled over the bleak hillside in the same outfit you'd wear to a shopping mall (plus gloves and my new hat). Before long it was time for Jenny to be dropped off at Dublin airport. Ryanair is cheap but they have the nasty habit of letting you bring lots of luggage into the country, and then charging you lots of money to take it home. Alone, I drove north and crossed into Northern Ireland without noticing it. I stayed the night a picnic spot in the Mourne Mountains. The car is a Fiat Punto by the way so there is nowhere near enough room for doing that on a regular basis. During the night another car turned up and parked on the other side, and a cat ran across the bonnet. I guess these things added to the bad dreams I had about being set upon by local youths intent on stealing the car. Anyway....

   I woke early (lots of times) and saw sunrise over the Irish sea. I drove straight through Belfast and cruised the coast all the way to The Giants Causeway. Before getting there though, I passed through the Glens Of Antrim and a snow storm! Yay!

Giant's Causeway

The causeway was much smaller than I thought, even after Bronwyn had said it would be. I stayed a while and took lots of pictures (to be uploaded as soon as I can get online in England I hope). I am now in Londonderry (aka Derry) and tomorrow I'll be checking out what makes Donegal one of Lorraine's favourite Irish spots.