Shamrocker Day Three; Day Three – Doolin back to Dublin

Our day started out with a visit to the faeries, as we stopped at a faerie ring. These are where faeries can travel between their plane and ours, through tree roots exposed above the soil. At this point we were in the County Clare, which is apparently the most superstitious part of Ireland. We had to walk clockwise around the ring, and say thankyou in Gaelic once we exited it. I never knew when Murf was being serious or pulling our legs, but everyone did it anyway. There are many types of faeries, including the Pooka who cut and scratch you when you’re out at night, another type who jump on your shoulders and make you stagger from side to side (ie the faerie who makes you get drunk!), leprechauns, banshees, heaps of others that I have no idea how to write as they are Gaelic words. The drinking culture is pretty scary though, bit of an eye opener.

We drove through the Barren, a limestone plateau which was apparently left when Ireland was back at the equator under that shallow sea. It’s pretty ‘barren’ and rocky but this was where Oliver Cromwell sent a bunch of people who he didn’t kill, to eek out a meagre existence amongst the rocks. There are lots of tombs there dating back 7000 years (that’s right, WAY older than the pyramids), with massive slabs of rock hoisted somehow onto their roofs. Human bones were placed inside with the idea that this portal would transport that soul into the next realm or existence.

We journeyed on to Clonmacnoise which is a site of foundation of Christianity in Ireland. It is now a site of pilgrimage and even Pope John Paul II journeyed to pray there. There are some amazingly carved Celtic crosses in the graveyard dating back to 900AD, and in attempting to preserve and restore them it was discovered that even with lasers and all the modern technologies we have, the skills of these ancient stonemasons can’t be replicated. They had to take casts of them instead.


Last stop was the Locke Whisky distillery, where Hamish took on the female species in a taste-testing game and won himself a lil bottle of whisky. I still like scotch more 

Shamrocker Day Two; Killarney to Doolin

This day was my favourite, the scenery was amazing as we drove up the south western coast of Ireland. We stopped off first in a town called Dingle which is known for a friendly dolphin called Fungi who hangs out in their harbour. I reckon he’s a relative of Opo. We had amazing coastal views along the Dingle peninsula.

We also stopped at the ‘end of the world’, the most westerly point of Europe and where the flat world ended before the Americas were discovered. This is Cloargh rock, and in good Shamrocker tradition tour members are incouraged to remove their shirts.

We caught a ferry across the river Shannon (the longest in Ireland) which took all of 10 minutes but saved a couple of hours driving apparently. We discovered that the Irish really do like to take the piss as Murf had directed us to a passenger lounge and glass-bottom viewing area on the ferry. The passenger lounge turned out to be a bench at the side of the car holding bay, and the glass-bottom area was a small dirty window.

I had been waiting to see the Cliffs of Moher most of all, and was delighted that the weather was really clear so we got a great view. Check this out!


Dinner that evening at a local Pub was a treat; delicious Irish stew with the most amazing Irish soda bread, a pint of Guinness and traditional Irish music. Celtic music is fantastic and there was a great band with guitars, a banjo, fiddle, squeeze-box (kinda like a piano-accordian but with buttons instead of piano keys), a bodhrain (special type of drum), and a tin whistle. Magical!

Delicious Irish stew, extra-delicious soda bread, washed down with a pint of Guinness - yum!

Shamrocker tour of Southern Ireland 1st - 3rd May

After really enjoying our Haggis tour of Scotland back in August last year, we decided to do a wee tour of Southern Ireland with their sister company, Shamrocker.

Day One; Dublin to Killarney
Our tour guide was Murf, (Murphy, classic awesome Irish accent too!) and unlike Haggis tours the Shamrockers also have a bus driver so the tour guide doesn’t have to navigate and talk/guide at the same time. It rained leprechauns for a while but then thankfully the weather was amazing for the rest of the trip. First stop was the Rock of Cashel, a castle built on an ancient Viking holding fort, and was the seat of the King of Munster.

Next were the Mitchelstown caves, owned and run by the family who discovered them so was quite an un-commercialised and different experience. Massive caverns underground have great acoustics so they run underground choir concerts, wine and cheese evenings and the like. There are even fossils in the caves of equatorial coral from 350 million years ago, proof they reckon that Ireland used to be near the equator under a shallow sea. We weren't allowed to take photos though.

Highlight of the day was visiting Blarney Castle and the Blarney Stone. This was special for Hamish as his mum has been there and done the same thing! Kissing the Blarney stone supposedly gives ‘the gift of the gab’ or the gift of eloquent speech. There are a few theories as to where it came from;
1)Faeries made it magical (this can be an answer to anything).
2)Queen Elizabeth I coined the phrase ‘load of Blarney’ after trying to take over Blarney Castle but being frustrated by the cunning language of the owners in their refusal to hand it over
3)The stone is said to be half of the stone of destiny, upon which Scottish Kings were crowned, as a token of comeraderie towards the Irish who had found alongside the Scots.
Me kissing the Blarney Stone. It's actually scarily exposed and there's enough gap to fall through to your death for sure!

Hamish's turn... he went after me so he got my goobies mwhahaha

The queue to kiss the Blarney Stone.

We stopped for the night in the town of Killarney which was buzzing with young hooligans in town for a rally. We all went out for a proper pint of Guinness, and then a pub theatre session with a local storyteller. His message involved stories of pubs and a song about syphilis, and various other ‘interesting’ topics. After that it was on to a ‘dishco’ where the dance floor lights were ragin’.

Our tour group in Killarney

Landing in Ireland!!

Well it's official - we have arrived in the Emerald Isle, land of Guinness and leprechauns. We came in to Dun Laoghaire port on an earlier swift ferry so had an extra few hours to play with in Dublin! Perfect sunshine greeted us after a rainy start, so we managed to see the Dublin castle and gardens, 2 famous cathedrals and do a bit of noseying through the shops.

St Patrick's Cathedral

At Dublin Castle

Dublin at night - over the river Liffey

The Lakes District, England and Wales!!

On the way down to Wales we decided to drive through a bit of the Lakes District in Cumbria, England.

We visited Lake Windermere which is the largest of the English lakes, and it was a lovely sunny day there. Hamish tried some Kendal Mint cake, which is like a bar of solid sugar (with extra glucose syrup!) that tastes like mint oil. You can even get chocolate covered ones! Good for endurance sport and the like, apparently some went up Mt Everest with the Hillary crew!


Then we moved down and crossed the border into WALES!!!


First stop in Wales was Conwy, where there is an awesome castle with city walls still pretty well intact.

This is Hamish at the top of one of the turrets; check out the one top left!


From there we moved on to Llandudno, a victorian seaside town where we stayed the night. Has a really different atmosphere!
Here's Hamish skimmin' his stones

The Last of Scotland

We have now farewelled Scotland :( On the way down to England and Wales we did check out 2 highlights though - Rosslyn Chapel and Hadrian's Wall.

You can't take photos of Rosslyn Chapel but most of you would have seen (a replica of) it in the Da Vinci Code. It was built in 1446 and has a fascinating history involving Knights Templar, Freemasons, murder, treasure; all the good stuff. We were able to get into a guided tour of the place and learned a lot about the carvings inside. Some of the really kool features were;
- A copy of the death mask of Robert the Bruce (that guy from Braveheart)/ a famous Scottish King.
- Over 100 'Green men'; these weird little faces of men with plants coming out of their mouths, supposedly a Pagan symbol of the bond/link between man and earth.
- 2 famous pillars at the front of the chapel; the Mason and the Apprentice pillar. The Mason carved his pillar, and then set off to a nearby town for inspiration for the 2nd one. Meanwhile the apprentice had a dream and beautifully carved the second pillar. When the Mason returned and saw the work, he flew into a jealous rage and killed his apprentice with a mallet. At the back of the chapel is a carving of the Mason's face, nearby is the Apprentice with a bump on his head, and then the Apprentice's crying mother.
- There is a carving of an angel carrying a heart. This is supposedly because the chap who had the chapel built (William St Clair) and his brother were chosen to escort the heart of Robert the Bruce (King of Scotland) to Jerusalem. Robert the Bruce had wanted his heart to be returned to the Holy place when he fell. If you read the Da Vinci code, there were certain other ties of the St Clairs to Jerusalem!
- The Crypt was where limited filming took place for the movie. Apparently Tom Hanks walked down an aisle and down into the Crypt, but the rest of the church was shot from a model, as the real chapel is currently under restoration and is covered in scaffolding. Apparently the film crew put up a sticker of a pentagram over the entrance of the crypt, which was removed after filming to leave a white mark where it had taken off the surface of the 600year old stone!!!! So now there is a nice white circle above the entrance to the crypt, lol.

After that, we left Scotland and passed over the English border.


Hadrian's Wall was built in ~130AD by Roman Emperor Hadrian as the frontier of the Roman Empire, and to keep the Picts at bay haha, the ancient inhabitants of Northern Scotland proved a bit much for the Romans to handle. The wall is now broken in places but originally stretched the whole way across the country. We visited it in several places, the most memorable being the Sycamore Gap. Here the is a beautiful Sycamore tree in the place where the opening scene of Robin Hood; Prince of Thieves was filmed. Lol.

This is me at the Sycamore Gap.

Here's Hamish with his bow n arrow :)

Almost there

Only 10 days to go before we start off on our travels, so we're busy with packing and organising!! We also moved back to the highland resort staff accomodation so that's kept us busy over the last few days.

This morning we were a bit homeless (between moving out of our house and into the resort later on) so we drove to Carrbridge nearby and ate our cereal (with all our cutlery and dishes and entire belongings haha) at this nice bridge amongst the squirrels.
Apprently this bridge was built in 1717 so that people could reach the burial place across the other side of the Dulnain river, bodies in tow :S