We weren't too sure how much time we would need in Ireland when we booked our tickets over and back, we decided to give ourselves 10 days, it really wasn't long enough, but we gave it a good go. We docked in Dublin late in the afternoon, so we decided we would check it out when we were leaving. We headed straight to a campground not far out of Dublin. Now something we hadn't thought about or realised, was that apart from Northern Ireland, the rest of Ireland, that is the Republic of Ireland, is in the EU, so they use the Euro and are metric, so Kph, not Mph, this is fine, but we didn't have Euro only Pounds on us, small problem. From our camp we headed south, down through the Wicklow Mountains and over Ireland's highest pass at a whole 470 metres! We continued south through lots of farming land and eventually hit the coast and followed it around to Cork where we stayed in Blarney at a nice park. The next day we went and had a look at the Blarney Castle and kissed the Blarney Stone, along with many others! We then had a look around the gardens and were very taken by Blarney House. From Blarney we headed into Cork and spent the rest of the day walking around looking at some of the old areas around the city and some of the nicer buildings in the city. We had decided we wanted to follow the coast as much as we could on our way around to Killarney, but after spending quite some time looking at Charles Fort in Kinsale we knew we wouldn't have enough time in the day. While I was researching our route though, I had found a very minor road that wound its way through valleys and very close to the base of Carrauntoohill, their highest mountain at 1041 metres, this is near Killarney. The road was great, but we couldn't believe how many cars were on it. In Killarney we stayed in a campground close to Ross Castle so that we could make an early start and be there early, but that idea was foiled by rain, it takes a lot longer to pack up in the rain. Ross Castle was great, the type of construction is called a Tower House, very common around Ireland in the 1500s. From Killarney we headed north and by the time we got to Tarnert to catch the ferry across the Shannon, the rain had given way to the odd shower. We continued heading north staying as close to the coast as possible, we stopped in at one more Tower House on our way to Galway where we stopped for the night. Before bed Julie and I visited our first Irish Pub, here we met some lovely locals and had quite a good time. One of the locals asked if we had had any punctures on our trip and when we said no, he said, "Not even here in Ireland"? Well you guessed it, in the morning we had our first puncture! Not bad after 64,000Ks. The next day was a huge day, we realised we were running out of time so while still trying to take in a scenic route we headed all the way up to a little village to the north of Letterkenny. From this nice little village we headed the next day into Northern Iteland and were a little surprised how noticeably different it was to the Republic of Ireland. For a start we felt the scenery was actually better, the coastline that we were following as much as we could appeared to get more spectacular and the Giant's Causeway was well worth the visit. We continued right along the coast all the way to Belfast where we stayed in a campground that had a high wire fence all the way around with a padlock on the gate and a security guard during busy times. In the city the next day we decided to catch the Hop on Hop off bus as we often do and were quite disturbed with what we saw and heard when we went through eastern Belfast. The other side of Belfast was most interesting for its boat building and of coarse the Titanic. While on the bus we caught up with an Australian couple from the campground, we spent some time with them having lunch and doing a tour of the Town Hall, another very interesting public building. It was disappointing that we only had one day in Belfast, but we wanted to spend a day in Dublin, so the next day we up and gone again. We had booked a hostel in Dublin because there were no campgrounds right near the city and the ferry we were catching back to Wales left at 8 in the morning. On the way down we stopped for lunch and met a guy on a bike that told us we needed to stop in and have a look at New Grange, a burial mound that dates back five thousand years, we also stopped in at the site where the Battle of Boyne took place, all amazing stuff and really well done. After staying in this hostel in Dublin we have decided that they will be a last resort in the future, we just don't enjoy them. This one reminded me of Elwood's room in the Blue's Brothers with the train running past right outside the window, at least it stopped around 11pm! We got in early enough to have a bit of a walk around before bed, Dublin certainly comes alive at night! I managed to get an Irish Stew in a nice, quite little cafe. In the morning it was about a twenty minute walk to the Guinness Brewery where we thought we must go for a look. The place was unbelievable, they have done an incredible job of creating a major tourist attraction, again though, we had limited time because we wanted to catch a free city walk at 1pm, though we did spend three hours in the brewery, you could spend a whole day. The walk we did was a three hour walk and our guide was brilliant, she took us through the history of Ireland, right from prehistoric times, through the Viking invasion, the famine, the 1916 rebellion and up to present day, fantastic. After our walk we spent the rest of the day looking around a lot of the city before heading back to our hostel and getting ready for an early start in the morning. The ferry in the morning appeared nearly empty and the weather was perfect for our sailing back to Wales.