Jilly did quite an extensive first entry about our tour of Ireland so I'll just add a few things to it...
Well, the first thing we did when departing the airport was to pick up the rental car we had reserved. I was the driver b/c i have had extensive experience when i was in Australia, but as we soon all discovered, that was in 1997, so I was a little rusty (not to mention that it was a stick shift to boot!). It was a lot to remember but it didn't take long to fall into the nice, slow paced driving of the locals here in Dublin! But, we survived ok and only one little incident to report... Those of you that know jill and myself, she's very carefree and I rely on her judgement totally... well, I'm performing a very highly skilled U-turn and there is a wonderfully uniform Irish Stone wall in front of us. So I asked my reliable, trustworthy Navigator, "Jill, are we going to make it?", and she replies, oh yeah, for sure. SCCCCCRRRRAAAAAPE, well Paul and Ria luckily convinced us to pay the extra 8 Euro/day for the extensive insurance so we'll see how it goes today when we return it.
On our travels just north of Cork (outside a little town called Middleton), we stumbled across this Cave that was on the private land of this family who sold tickets at their front door. IT was 200 metres down into the ground but luckily there was electricity. It was quite cool but there were no bats b/c it's a constant 12 degrees celsius, too warm for bats (jill and Ria were quite relieved to hear this tidbit of info). At one point there was this open area where Kevin, our guide, told us that they held a charity concert down in here with 200 chairs set up with a stage.... they even got a piano down and if you saw the 88 steps that we had to walk down, not to mention how steep they were and narrow, you would find it quite amazing that they even attemped this feat let alone acomplishing it.
ok, Noreen and Denny, what a very nice couple and very hospitable! (some may have found Noreen a little over the top, but you can't blame her she's just very friendly and loves to talk! She could fit into the girl's dinner nights on Thursdays no problem!). Denny took Paul and i over to his farm and we met his son Michael. Not very talkative, obviously doesn't take after his mother, but he was very nice. Then Denny took us on a lil tour of the outskirts of Kinsale where there was a fort... very scenic, overlooking the harbour into Kinsale but the best part was coming across this truck that said pigeon racing on the side of it. Denny turns around and we find out that we are 5 min. away from the start of the race, so we spoke to the "starters" until the race began... They were saying that 4 or 5 pigeon keepers owned all of these pigeons and the finish line is way back up in wexford, so I obviously asked them if they have ever seen the finish of a race, but they didn't share my same sense of humour! Anyways, picture a 1-ton truck with about 7 rows and 5 columns of doors on both sides of the truck. On the count of three, the two of them open up all of the doors and out fly the pigeons. I assumed that there would be one pigeon behind each door, but once the doors were open and all I could see was this huge white/gray cloud for about 3 seconds, realized there must have been at least 10 pigeons minimum behind each door. There were a few trailers that had to be pushed out of the doors and I was a little scared when 3 or 4 took a sharp right turn and were flying right at me... I turned and burned it (you know, with my cat-like reflexes) til I realized they turned away from me as quickly as they came initially. We all had a good chuckle. Then Denny took us into town and we met a couple of locals in the harbour and before we knew it Denny was trying to line us up for some Deep Sea fishing but the Captain was making repairs already so it was a no go.
Paul and I decided to golf in the afternoon b/c it was a beautiful day and then the girls would have time to peruse the shops. Paul and I couldn't do both so we grudgingly went off to the golf course. As soon as we dropped our 53 Euro and were on the first tee box we look behind us and all of a sudden the beautiful day turned into this huge dark gray cloud heading right for us... well, when it comes to golf and rain, and if you have golfed with me before, you'll know that I always become very optimistic that it'll just blow over and we'll be ok. Needless to say, berfore we hit the green the rains came and there we were huddled under trees and bushes in the pouring rain. Paul and I couldn't believe it. We laughed and then it let off some, so Paul ran back to the car, got his coat and 2 umbrellas and we were back at it. THe course only had one set of left handed clubs and we weren't allowed to share one bag, so Paul turned on his Cedar hill charm and the woman gave us a deal. We were able to split the clubs into two bags. Unfortunately the bags didn't have a shoulder strap so we had to carry them by the handle for the whole round. I know what you are thinking, it can't be that heavy with only 6 or 7 clubs in the bag but these bags were from the early 80's where the bags were about 20 inches in diameter and weighed about 50 lbs! It was a nice course though other than being totally covered in rabbit shit! This was when I realized playing in my sandles was probably a bad idea!
Now, at the Mad Monk, where we listened to the local irish tunes... Ollie was quite a character. Jill mentioned his shirt but it was bright white with stickmen in every sexual position possible and he was this big Jolly fellow who was very proud of his irish background. We noticed him singing along to every tune the band played and then all of a sudden he's introduced and brought up to the stage for a 'guest appearance'. He was hilarious, the words of his songs were funny but the actions he did along with the lyrics was drop dead funny. For those of you who know Shane Legree, picture him in about 30 years! sorry guy!
Just to add to Jilly's comments, the sites along the Ring of Kerry and Ring of Skellig, the cliffs of Moher and the Aran islands were truly breathtaking... but not only did we meet Marg and Jim on the same ferry but that same morning at our B&B we met this couple also from Ontario and after further discussion found out they were from Walkerton. It turned out that my buddy Dan taught their son at Walkerton District High! Small world!
Well, I'm getting tired of typing and no doubt you are getting bored reading so I'll sign off... but stay tuned for more details of our global tour! We did the Double decker bus tour today of Dublin and we are glad that we only had two days of the big city life... the small towns are so much more quaint and interesting...
Until Scotland... the Geddoches...
Posted by jill at September 13, 2003 05:29 PM