Travel

Tour Guide

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Last week, after having photographed J’s beautiful wedding in Mullingar (photos coming / blog post coming – I promise) I had an extra day off. A friend of mine had his brothers in town, so I volunteered to take all 3 of them up to visit New Grange Passage Tomb in the rain. I’ve written about this place before (see link above) and am always fascinated when I take other people up here.

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My plans, however, were foiled by the typical Irish weather. It was slightly cloudly when we left, and by the time we took the hour drive up to the Boyne Valley, it was sprinkling… Just after lunch, it started raining. While we were up at the monument itself (it is open and there is NO protection from the elements) it started lashing rain. Thankful I had remembered umbrellas and my multiple raincoats, I had to laugh as Matthew popped up his umbrella and started with his rendition of “Singing in the Rain” in a Glasgow Accent.

Cancelling the idea of going to Knowth and Tara (posts behind each link here), I took the guys up to Trim Castle just in time for the rain to clear – and for me to find out that we missed the last tour of the gorgeous keep and grounds.

The good news, however, is that the guys are never deterred – and we went to the pub I knew about in Trim -where the owner promptly came forth and regailed the guys with tales of Trim, expounded about the locals that were extras in Braveheart, showed off tons of movie memorabilia in the hallway and really salvaged the day out. In the end, despite the lashing rain and getting soaked – we had a great time, and a few laughs.

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Newry, UK

Newry Bernish Overlook Panorama

I was thinking this morning that I should go up to Northern Ireland to go shopping again. Some things are cheaper there, like food and clothing – even with the conversion rate from pounds sterling to euros, and others are not eg. Petrol, cost of living, etc. It’s because of the tax rate difference between the UK and Ireland. Well, that, and retailers from the UK just charge those in Ireland a lot more than they maybe should to those in Ireland because they have to have the items shipped to the UK and then re-shipped to the lower half of the island.

The picture at the top is from just above Newry, at the Bernish Overlook, looking the town of Newry. It’s from the last trip I made (I snagged a dress for 78 pounds that was selling in Dublin for double that!), and as you can see, there was a snowstorm moving in.

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Doolin, County Claire

In the last post, I told you about my adventure at the Father Ted House.. When we were done with tea, we took the chance to go drive over to the Claire Coast, and stopped in Doolin for a proper dinner. Doolin was mostly closed for the day as we arrived about 5pm in the afternoon. Luckily, we had brought our sandwiches and snacks and decided to go sit nearby the Harbour to eat.

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As we pulled in, I immediately started noticing the signs. There’s nothing in particularly strange about no parking signs, or signs that say you can’t walk the dog off leash – or that you have to clean up after the pets.

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What caught my eye, however, is the fines. It’s the oddly random amounts – of the conversion from eg. 1000 pounds sterling to 1269.74 euros, and the 1500 Pound fine to 1904.61 euros that made me giggle. Really? 61 cents? These are clearly odd / slightly old signs since the region hasn’t been under the British Pounds in quite some time, but yet they’re not that old – because they have the conversion to Euros (what was the conversion rate)?
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Once past the signs, I did quite enjoy the view from Doolin Harbour. In the distance, you can see the cliffs – and up close you can see the lovely grass and rocks as you head to the rocky beach.

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The tide was just coming in, which made for some interesting wave action. At the same time, though, the wind was blowing up a storm and the sun was setting – this made for an interesting challenge trying to get pictures.

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I got a couple nice silhouette shots of the guys watching the waves and the building down near the beach, paused for dinner, and then we all dashed back to the car before the rain.

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I think this is one place I’d like to come back to before I leave Ireland – hopefully I can get some nice weather and a couple more days off sometime soon.

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