IRELAND

Belfast City 30th June 2009
Tonight we arrived in Belfast, greeted by an overweight taxi man who proceeded to tell us about the bad youth hostels in Belfast swearing in every sentence. Luckily he finished his story telling us that the one we were about to stay in was actually one of the nice one’s. Once we were checked in we took a walk around the city and the waterfront.

Belfast – Dublin 1st July 2009
After Craig had picked up our rental car we decided to take the scenic route to Dublin. We drove down the Ards Peninsular to a small town called Portaferry where we caught a small car ferry across the channel to carry on down the coast. We didn’t see to much along the way because the weather was damp and misty.
Once in Dublin we drove around out to the coast and had a look at one of the beaches. The weather still was not fantastic so we didn’t stay long. The weather did clear in time for a late afternoon/evening walk around the city. We went to the Legendary Guinness storehouse. A 7 storey interactive visitor attraction which takes you through the story of Guinness ending on the 7th floor at Gravity bar where we took in 360 degree views of Dublin city while enjoying our complimentary pint of Guinness. The rumors are true Guinness does taste better in Ireland! After the pint we went and walked around the historic city walls, Medieval and Viking areas. We then headed for Temple Bar area to look around and have dinner.

Dublin – Cork 2nd July 2009
Another rainy and misty day we drove from Dublin to Cork with several stops along the way we stopped briefly in the small coastal town called Wicklow and a larger port town called Waterford. We then headed for Michelstown and the Michelstown caves. Somewhere in the middle of Irish farmland we found the old farmhouse with a A4 note saying tickets from the door. After ringing the door bell we got our old school raffle ticket from the little old lady at the door and walked up the path to a rock opening. We had to wait for a tour to go through the caves but once we got in the ground opened up into 3 huge caverns with some of the most impressive examples of stalagmites and stalactites in Europe. After the caves we carried onto cork, where we spent the night. Cork was quite a modern town with lots of shopping.

Cork – Killarney 3rd July 2009
Luckily we found a visitor guide to Kerry at our backpackers the night before. We made a last minute change of plans to drive the ring of Kerry, one of Ireland’s most scenic drives. The Ring of Kerry took us around the Iveragh Peninsular, one of the 3 main peninsular at the southern most part of Ireland. We stopped at several beaches and bays along the way. Our stops included Caherdaniel, Coomakesta Pass, and a town called Waterville. We then headed to what our guide book called ‘Kerry’s most spectacular cliffs’. The cliffs were a 10minute walk from a house come café where the owners charged you to park your car and walk down a gravel track, through there property, to the viewing area, they did give you a pair of old binoculars which were pretty blurry and then offered a discount if we ate in the café afterwards. The cliffs we 1000 feet high with views over the Blasket Islands. They also offered views of Skellig Rocks and Puffin Island, with the binoculars so the view was pretty blurry. We were luck to dodge the rain as it poured down once we were back in the car. The weather was pretty on and off for the rest of the day. Next stop was Portmagee & Valentia Island. At Portmagee we drove up to a Quarry high on one of the cliff ands looked down over the bay when then drove over to Valentia Island but by now the weather had packed in so we didn’t stay long as driving up the mountains/cliffs would have been a waste of time because we wouldn’t have been able to see anything. After this we continued up the peninsular and headed to Killarney, where we were staying for the night.
Killarney has a beautiful national park, the first in Ireland, and since the sun had come out again were spent some time taking in some of the park. First we visited Tork Waterfall and then drove through the parks winding roads up to Ladies View which looked down over the parks 3 main lakes. We stopped at a few places along the shores of the lakes on the way back to our hostel.

Dingle Peninsular – Galway 4th July 2009
The next morning we set off to the next peninsular, Dingle Peninsular and slea head. Pete (Craig’s brother) had told us this was a great place to visit so we had high hopes. Our first stop was Inch, a really cool 3 mile long sandy surf beach. From hear on the weather was really bad. Next we stopped at Dunbeg Promontory Fort. There are a lot of historic stone buildings, fences and structures around the Dingle Peninsular so we decided we should stop at at least one. Again a lot of these are on private land and are local farmers looking to earn some money. Radiocarbon dating dated activity at this fort around 580 BC. The defenses consist of 4 lines of banks, 5 fosses and an inner drystone rampart with a complex entrance flanked by 2 guard-chambers. In the interior there is a small clochaun (beehive).
We continued driving around the coast stopping at viewing points along the way trying to take in the scenery when between breaks in the rain. The coastline had some lovely beaches and bays which i’m sure would have looked great on a sunny day. We didn’t have too much time to spend here as we had a long drive ahead of us.
Our next stop was the Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs are 214m high at the highest point and range for 8 kilometers over the Atlantic Ocean. From the Cliffs you can see the Aran Islands, Galway Bay, as well as The Twelve Pins, the Maum Turk Mountains in Connemara and Loop Head to the South. The Cliffs of Moher are home to one of the major colonies of cliff nesting seabirds in Ireland.
Continuing our drive to Galway took us through the Burren National Park. The word Burren derives its name from Boireann, which means 'rocky land' in Gaelic, exactly what this place is, a vast limestone plateau in northwest County Clare. Glaciation and wind and rain erosion have formed limestone pavements with deep crevices known as 'grykes'. The porous rock is easily penetrated by rain water, which has gouged out an extensive cave system beneath the rocky plateau. It’s a very desolate but intriguing place with rocks as far as the eye can see. According to the books it provides a unique botanical environment containing rare plants, though we didn’t see to much growth!

Galway – Derry 5th July
We had a quick drive around Galway in the morning; it was another town so we did stay to long instead headed off up to Derry via the scenic route. We drove through Connemara National park which took us past mountains, lakes and costal scenery as we made our way to Derry.
We arrived in Derry and checked into our ‘alternative’ backpackers. We headed into Derry to look at the walls. Derry is the only remaining walled city in Ireland. The walls date back to the 17th century and withstood a siege that lasted 102 days. The walls are open to the public to walk their 1 mile circuit providing views over the city and its surrounds. There were some of the original canons preserved and scattered around the wall.
After the walls and dinner we went for a walk to see the Murals. The murals are symbolic of the different communities depictions of life through the troubled times. They were giant paintings scattered randomly on the sides of buildings which was not exactly what we expected but they were worth visiting.

Costal Causeway Route, Northern Island 6th July
Today we drove the costal causeway route, Northern Irelands most science drive. We had seen some amazing pictures of this area so had high expectations that this was going to be the best part of our trip and it was. Our first site was the Musseden temple sitting alone on one of the high cliffs. We then visited Portrush, a pretty little costal town. The area is known for it ‘white rocks’. The limestone cliffs of the white rocks stretch from Curran Strand to Dunluce Castle. These soft, sedimentary rocks have been carved through centuries into a labyrinth of caves and arches. We had a quick stop to check out Dunluce castle a bit further up the coast but decided not to pay to go in as we could see most of it from the road. It was pretty cool old ruins sitting on the edge of the sea cliff.
Next we visited the Giants Causeway, a UNESCO world heritage site and national nature reserve on the north Atrium coast. The Causeway consists of over 38 000 mainly hexagonal shaped basalt columns packed closely to form ‘stepping stones’ out to sea towards Scotland. The columns were formed 60 million years ago by the cooling and shrinking of molten lava. Legend has it that the area was created by an Irish giant named Finn MacCool. To prove his superior strength and status, Finn decided to fight against a rival Scottish giant named Benandonner. As there was no boat large enough to carry huge Finn across the sea he built his own pathway of stepping stones. He was then able to walk across the sea without his feet getting wet. There similar stones on the island of Staffa, in the Hebrides, Scotland.
Our final tourist attraction for the day was Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. Carrick-a-Rede means the rock in the road. The road is the sea route for Atlantic salmon on their westward journey past Carrick Island. For over 350 years, fishermen strung a rope bridge 30m above the sea to access the best places to catch the migrating salmon. In later times a permanent bridge was put in place. Due to over fishing fisherman no longer come to the area for salmon and the bridge is now open to the public. Once over the bridge we saw same old remains of fishing equipment and walked around the small island.

Belfast 7th July
This morning we did a hop on hop off bus trip around Belfast city. We saw where titanic was built and launched for its only voyage, parliament buildings (Stormont), Crumlin Jail and Court house and Shankhill Road/Falls Road area.
At the Crumlin Jail there was a small press photography exhibition called out of the dark. Most of the photos showed the troubles and fight that had gone on over the years. It was very eerie being in a jail looking at the photographs which showed people rioting. The jail is situated in the Shankhill area. This area has so much history of the troubles between loyalists & republicans / protestant & catholics. Here we saw the peace walls that are still in place, erected to try to form a barrier between groups and heard stories of the troubles. One of the walls was once known as the snipers wall and stands 20 feet tall. There are also many murals here that cover the conflict and culture of Northern Ireland.

Overall Ireland reminded us of New Zealand but not as cool. There is a lot of farm area and a lot of historic stone areas with stone wall fences and cottages. The weather was very average with some rain every day, but we expected that.