Day 13: 13/1/13
Today we left at 9:30 so that was a sleep in! My head is still completely blocked up but my sore throat is gone and I feel better in general.
We had another long drive today. It was lashing rain all day. The first stop was just a cafe for breakfast and toilets. We stopped at a seal viewpoint and saw some seals. There were little baby ones aswell crawling around on the rocks! We got nice and wet though trying to see them!
We stopped for a supermarket stop. We passed some town that an earthquake wiped out in the 60's I think. Also, we stopped somewhere else where there was a walk to see some rocks but it was raining really heavily so we just went into the cafe and had a hot chocolate. The driver put the Inbetweeners movie on so that passed the time. We got to Blackball around half 5 in the evening.
Blackball was a tiny little village. It's an old mining town but there's very little in it at the moment. We were staying in a 'hotel' called 'Formerly known as the Blackball Hilton'. It was really old with carpets and pictures everywhere. It was all a bit strange! They had a restaurant there so most of us ate dinner there as they didn't really have a kitchen anyway! 29 people were killed in a mining explosion two years ago so there were newspaper articles about that on the wall in the restaurant.
There were some of the group staying in another 'hotel' round the corner! So we went up for a look and ended up staying the whole night. There was a bar there with no one in it, so we completely took it over! I figured the early nights weren't helping my cold so I might aswell drink!! We played some drinking games- On the bus: a card guessing game which is good! After a while the night just got completely crazy! A local arrived out with ketchup bottles full of water and there was a bit water fight. A German girl sang an Adele song- she was really good! They had a piano there so I played some Irish songs while Mark, the Dublin guy sang! We tried Dirty Ould town, Molly Malone, Fields of Athenry, Ratlin Bog, etc. it didn't go that well but it was fun! Our guide sang R Kelly Ignition too which was funny! We took group photos aswell. I think the barman thought we were mental! By the end of the night there were actual raw sausages doing the rounds- madness!!
Trust us to find the one place with noone in it to act pure silly!!