After a night on the ferry, we arrived in Cork. Not a heck of a lot to do in Cork city but as we had booked accomodation, we had a look around. The hostel was really nice and the city was between two rivers. We found a small micro-brewery where we tried six of their beers, then we went off to a traditional pub for a pint. Brenda was stoked because the hostel had a sauna, so of course she had one!

Wednesday we jumped on a bus to Killarney. Really nice place with a national park. Walked to the nearest lake in the park which had a castle on the lake edge. The sun was out so we found a quiet spot on the lake edge and chilled out for a bit. Beyond the lake were decent hills, very pretty. Then we got the bus to Limmerick where we stayed in a pub hotel.

Thursday we went to Bunratty which is an old village and castle that is all open, like a folk park. It was very cool to wander around and see things as they would have once been. Then we had to travel back to Limmerick in order to catch the bus to the cliffs of Moher, famous from The Princess Bride (and other movies). The cliffs were pretty amazing and damn high! Plenty of seagulls and tourists but no puffins :( Then another bus to Galway where we stayed the night.

Friday was off to Dublin. Dublin was a lively city but very touristy. Went out for dinner and then looked for a traditional pub with Irish music but all we could find were pubs playing pop songs. Saturday morning we caught up with Perry, a friend from uni who now works at Google. He very kindly gave us the grand tour, even Brenda was impressed!

We were running out of time, as Brenda needed to be in Glasgow on Monday, so we decided to pass through Belfast and stay at the Giants Causeway. This meant a bus from Dublin to Belfast, then train to Coleraine and then a taxi to the causeway. We arrived a few hours before dusk - a great time to go for walk along the coast and checkout the causeway. The causeway was impressive, not as big and amazing as we expected but still very cool. Then we had a couple of drinks at the local pub and then it was bedtime.

Sunday was a big travel day. We repeated the reverse journey from the causeway to Belfast, then got a taxi to the ferry. We watched Yogi Bear on the ferry - was pretty cool to see Lake Whakamaru in a movie! When we arrived in Scotland, we had a three hour wait for the next train which was a good opportunity for a visit to the local pub! We tried haggis (actually really nice) and shared a roast chicken meal (half a roast chicken!).

Unfortunately we ran out of time to vist Gortin or look around Belfast, so we're thinking we will come back one day when we can spend more time and have a more generous budget!