Oh the places to go.....

On a clear day you can see Scotland...

Well we took off from Dublin and made our way up the coast. Our first stop was a place called Larne which on a clear day you can see Scotland and fortunately for us it was a clear day (finally!). We really did see Scotland and we thought for about 10 minutes of taking the ferry across and making land over there. But where we would land there isn,t a whole lot to do and so we decided against it (but we really wanted to go).

Once we saw Scotland we got back in the car and headed to a place where they have a rope bridge that goes from the main island over the ocean to a small island. It is really beautiful with the ocean and the huge rolling hills that cut off into the sea, but are so green and lush with grass and ferns etc. The water is really clear in that part because the ocean floor is made up of chalk with a really fine powdery level of sand. It,s really tempting to want to go wade in the water but you know how cold it is so it brings you back to reality.

The bridge is really cool. We were told that this is the new bridge having been replaced by the old bridge a year ago. After walking about 3-4 of a mile down there you have to walk down this really steep stair way and then cross the bridge. It swings not only from someone being on it but also from the wind and it,s made out of rope with little wooden planks on the bottom. You.re about 90 feet up from the ocean and it,s a really great view but that,s kind of blocked out because you,re trying to hold on from swaying. A bit scary but exhilerating none the less. After checking out the view from the other side and crossing back over we headed on. Next stop was some more castle ruins. These are right on a hill overlooking the coast. We saw part of them but you have to go along a narrow path right on the edge of a hill and they have all these warning signs encouraging but freaking you out about going to we took a picture of the one part you could see and called it good. We ran into a gal whose was walking this whole trek and she asked how far it was to the ropebridge and so we offered her a ride over there (our good deed for the day).

Once we dropped her off we made our last tourist stop and saw the giant,s causeway. This whole part of Ireland we are in is called Northern Ireland and is actually seperate from the rest of the country. Northern Ireland is part of Brittan and is on their currancy which is the pound so we had to change our money again and lost more due to the exchange rate (the price of traveling). But I only got so much out and so when we got to the causeway I didn,t have enough to take the shuttle down to the area so that left the only other option: to hoof it. The going down part isn,t bad it,s the coming back part where you,re hiking up quite a huge hill that sucks. But the causeway is really kind of cool. It,s a bunch of I guess you can call them rocks but they are shaped in a hexagon and some are short and some are quite tall. They say that it,s a lava flow thing that when they cooled they cooled in that shape. There,s one part of the beach that has just hundreds of thousands of them and then there,s an area that have super huge tall ones right into the mountain that are poking out and they call it the organ cuz it looks like organ pipes. It was very interesting.

After leaving there we made our way down through Londonderry (which looks like a really cool town and we need to go back and explore there somemore) and headed into Donegal. I,ve been waiting to hit this place because this is where Mom,s side of the family came from. It,s really a neat little town and it has loads of great shopping. We woke up the next morning and checked out the castle and then hit the shops. Most of my purchases came from here. Some are really cool (like hand woven scarfs, sweaters etc) and some might leave you scrating your head. I,ll have to show you when I get home and leave it as a teaser.

After shopping we hit the road to explore this area and see the Conveigh National Forest. We followed our map and was making really good time through the area. We stumbled onto a caostal town out there for lunch and had this really good homemade vegitable soup (probably my favorist meal in all of Ireland). From there things went downhill. Although we saw a lot of scenerey and it,s all still really beautiful and would be even prettier in the spring time with all the flowers, the thing we realized is that in County Donegal all the signs are printed in gaelic which is Irelands orginal language spoken by the vikings I think (but don,t quote me on it, it,s early to think). Needless to say you can,t decipher what they say and so you spend a lot of time scrating your head and stopping to find out where to go. We were doing pretty well but it go to the point where we were pretty much lost and didn,t have a clue where we were. We stopped to ask a guy where we were and asked him if we were close to I can,t remember which town but his response was :bloody hell no!: He was kind enough to tell us how to get back to the main road and when other roads we needed to take to get through the rest of the national park and on our way.

Oh I forgot before we got lost we found this really cool waterfall and this beach floor that went on in this valley for about almost 10 km (about 6-7 miles). As for pictures, those will have to wait because I can,t download to any of these computers plus it would take way too long and would be too expensive right now. Sometimes I.m lucky just to find a computer that isn,t too slow and have the time to post. I woke up early to do it right now and I,m not going to have time to post everything. I,ll have to try to catch up again tonight if possible.

Well we finally made it though the national forest but then we got a really late start to our last stop of the night; Galway city. We didn,t get into town until around 12:00 am-ish. We tried to find a hotel/hostel but found out that there were big horst races that weekend and everything was booked. We found a hotel but it was a bit more expensive than we would ever want to pay but we were in a bind, tired and didn,t have too many other options, so we had to take it. It was a 3 star and very nice so that was a good change. They don,t believe in air conditioning here in Ireland and so even though it,s muggy from the humidity, you can,t try and cool off, even in their cars. Well my laundrys done and we have to head out again so I,ll try to finish tonight. But a teaser for you: What do Rome, the Sistene Chapel and Christina Aguilara have in common?

posted by Camille @ 11:50 PM