(L) We had made a special effort to be all packed up and in bed nice and early last night so we were both awake nice and early..... 6 am! We want to be on the road by 8 as we have a 3.5 hour drive to Bru Na Boinne (pronounced "Bru Na Boin (as in coin) ya" to be more precise) well according to Jane anyway!

I had made a stir fry with all our left over veg, boiled eggs, tomato and cheese for dinner last night - actually tasted really good - so we heated the leftovers up and had poached eggs with it cos we need to fill up before our big day .... finishing our eggs as well so we think we did very well with the amount of food we'd purchased and the amount of savings we'd made by self catering a couple of meals per day.

All set to go and out to the car to find, once again, it was coated in a thick layer of frost! I jumped in and turned on the demisters whilst Deb used my organ donor card(!!!) to scrape off the ice whilst she poured some warm water on the windows. Didn't take too long before we could get going however poor Deb spent the next 10 minutes trying to get feeling back in her fingers! 

We took the N5 which was a pretty busy road this morning, probably everyone heading off for work at Castlebar and further afield. The fog and frost was magical and Deb was busy snapping photos all morning whilst exclaiming how gorgeous it all was.... our windscreen however kept getting a white layer of some sort of deposit flung all over it so I had to keep cleaning it off with the windscreen wiper spray until the water ran out and I was having serious trouble seeing where I was going (whilst driving at 100kms per hour!). We pulled over so Deb could throw on a bit of water ... got us back on the highway however we decided to take the next town exit to find a service station so we could fill the washer reservoir up, top up the tank and take a toilet break! 

We pulled into Ballyaghaderreen which proved a good move as the Diesel was €1.16(.2) a litre which is the cheapest we've seen the whole trip, and the attendant was lovely and helpful and we managed to get ourselves all sorted... even though it took me 5 minutes to work out how to open the bonnet and a lovely man stopped his car and came over to help me! One thing we've found is that all the Irish drivers are very patient and friendly, no-one seems to have any "road rage" and once again we feel it's the "slow, slow" philosophy that we encountered in Greece in 2013. I on the other hand was getting so incredibly annoyed and frustrated at drivers (yes mainly older woman sadly) driving 60 in the 100 zone even though there was a big shoulder and as Deb and I kept commenting "if they've driven in Greece they'd know to get over on the shoulder so we could pass them"!!

Anyway we did eventually managed to pull into Bru Na Boinne in around 4 hours. From the visitors centre, where we paid €6 each we walked across the footbridge and onto the waiting bus that took us ( and 23 other people) over to the amazing site. This place is just amazing.... constructed some 5000 years ago.... yes... that's what I said!! It has been radio carbon dated back to 3200BC... OMG that is seriously just mind blowing... the carved rocks are original and untouched. What more can I say?? If you get the chance this is a MUST!! 

From here we had a quick 30ish minutes straight down the M1 to Dublin airport where we found the car rental return without too much trouble. I must say though that it's not nearly as well marked as Brisbane airport where you have the coloured markings on road. One thing we were a bit surprised at was that the petrol gauge was showing full when we pulled up however when he turned the car back on to check it was only showing 3/4 full!!! When we went in to the desk I explained to the guy that we had filled it up not long ago and that it was reading full as we approached the airport so hadn't put more in so he only charged us €15 (well actually refunded €65 of the €80 hold they had on my C/C) which we thought was pretty reasonable considering it's not really their fault the car shows different amounts! We had noticed when we filled up it would say "1000kms distance to empty" and then 10 minutes later would say "1083kms distance to empty".... weird!!

The Dan Dooleys shuttle bus dropped us off at Coach Zone 16 when we told him we were staying the night at the Metro Hotel and before we knew it the Hotel shuttle was there to take us to our bed for the night.

All checked in and settled in the room then straight down to the bar for a couple of White Russians to farewell Ireland. We had the Early Bird Special.... 2 course meal + glass of wine for €15.95 pp. Really good food!

Full and happy we've retired to our room to get some blogging and photo sorting done before an early night.... the alarm will be ringing at 4 AM!!!!

(D) Really not much to add to Liane's recap of our day; she's definitely right I thoroughly enjoyed the Winter Wonderland we drove through this morning. At one stage I remarked to Liane it looked like something out of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - it was Narnia! We noticed the temperature gauge inside the car that notes the outside temperature read minus three so it wasn't at all surprising there was a complete blanket of frost everywhere. It did surprise us slightly though that the frost was still around after noon..... it just hadn't warmed up that much I guess?!

I completely concur with Liane in regards the Newgrange site - it is a totally magical place. So much so that it isn't even ruined by being in the tiny internal chamber with some 23 other people - the atmosphere still completely overwhelms you. The ancient carvings, the swirls, diamonds etc that so many primitive cultures share are so clear and undamaged that it is indeed remarkable to consider that they were created 5000 years ago..... and the roof structure, and the fact that it was built by Stone Age people that many years ago, is just so AMAZING that it's hard to genuinely believe!!!

Over the entrance doorway these people also built one of those roof or light "boxes" so that at the Winter Solstice apparently the sun manages to shine, along a very narrow and also slightly curved passageway, to perfectly alight the main chamber..... It's just mind boggling how these ancient peoples managed such precision of structure! At one stage Jackie, our wonderful guide, turned off the lights that had been on as we walked in (and we walked in sideways and ducking at some parts!) and then a light illuminated where the Winter Solstice shines. It looked just incredible and would no doubt be a fabulous thing to witness first hand.

 As we weren't there for the Winter Solstice and also no photos were permitted inside anyway (being it's a sacred site we completely concurred with that stricture), I purchased some postcards and took photos of them for the blog so we could remember the story of the light and just what a marvellous place it was.