Bristol and Ireland

OK, again Ive been slack but here's whats been happening.

I was in Bristol for a week with Xenie and Hannah before I flew from Bristol airport to Dublin. While in Bristol I stayed with the for mentioned friends along with their two housemates, Ben and Louey. While in Bristol I checked out the SS Great Britain, one of the first ships made with an iron hull, which served many purposes throughout its long working life, including taking people from Britain to start their new lives in Australia. Xenie and Hannah also took me to the gorge and large suspension bridge right next to Bristol as well as some caves in the vicinity.


Louey took me for a walk in a local park which used to be the gardens of a large manor complete with small castle. The park Incorporated a wooded, steep and narrow valley that had lots of different paths both at the bottom and top of the valley walls.


On a side note, heres a photo of a fox that came visiting while i was watching tv one morning.

After a week of doing not that much at all in Bristol I said farewell to my childhood, English friends and went to the airport to catch the plane over the Irish Sea to Dublin.

After the very short flight I was picked up at the airport by Joe, my cousins husband and after a few business meetings in which I spent the time mostly sleeping, we eventually arrived in Kilkenny where Ive been staying for the past (almost) two weeks. In the first couple of days I checked out the town of Kilkenny and its local castle and grounds. Most of the castle was entrance by tour only and as i had no cash on me I just looked at a little art exhibition they had going at the time, while making my way out I took a detour and accidentally took myself on a short tour of the castle without a guide but no one said anything so I just kept going.
The next day, Joe, whos family have been living in Kilkenny for generations, took me on a tour of Kilkenny and showed me some more of the sights as well as telling me the history of the city. A few interesting things about Kilkenny; firstly Kilkenny is a city of about 20,000 people. Now Gawler is a town north of Adelaide, Im not sure of the population but it has a high number of pubs (around 10 I think) for the size of the town. Kilkenny, with its 20,000 people has over 100 pubs. There is a street where there is no less than 5 pubs in a row, in other words, a nice town for a pubcrawl.
The next day we took a trip down to Waterford and went to the famous Waterford Crystal factory and then to the beach for a nice walk. While walking along the beach we had a running game of Hurling, a popular Irish sport thats a bit like grass hockey but you are allowed to flick the ball up and hold it for a few paces and then hit it like a baseball. Also, it has much fewer rules than hockey. Its AWESOME! I love it, so wish they played it in Australia.
In the next few days I went up to a town called Athlone with Joe and visited the British Isles oldest pub, established in 900AD. Really cool place, I had a good chat with the barmen and bought a tshirt. As far as Athlone goes, thats pretty much it. The rest was boring.
During the next couple of days, my wonderful cousin Sarah put my name on her old cars insurance and I was able to borrow it and drive down to Cork for a few days. It took a couple of hours to get down there and on the way I stopped off at a small coastal village called Knockadoon which a few other people may know as Llanfair. After a bit of climbing around the coast and taking some photos I headed for Cork, where I had managed to time it so my arrival coincided perfectly with rush hour. After 30 mins or so of driving in circles completely lost, I parked my car and wandered around on foot completely lost and asking people where abouts I was on the shockingly bad map I had with me. After about an hour of walking I found the hostel I was staying at, walked all the way back to my car and drove it there, where upon I checked in and collapsed on the couch, watched tv and talked to other people in the hostel for the rest of the evening.
The next day I took a walk around Cork which isnt a bad city. I stopped off first at the Cork University which was just across the road from the hostel. I had a nice walk through and it is a great uni, scenically at least, it was such a beautiful campus. In one of the main buildings they had Ogam stones on display, stones which show the first written language of the pre Celtic peoples of Ireland. They were mostly used for marking the burial spot like tombstones and had names written on them in a script made up entirely of lines down the edge of the stones. After seeing the uni I headed up and looked at the old Cork Gaol then at the Old English Market and then walked around for a time.
That evening I sat around and talked with some fellow travellers at the hostel and a couple of us went for an evening walk around the city to see some of the evening sights. Unfortunately I was almost completely broke and so was unable to go have a drink.

The next day I packed up all my stuff and drove over to Blarney Castle which houses the famous Blarney Stone. A stone which gives the gift of eloquence to those who kiss it. So along with a couple of bus loads of American tourists I climbed to the top of the castle and hung over the edge backwards to kiss the stone. Id like to say that hanging backwards over the edge of a castle 20 or so meters high is exhilarating but its not really; partly because there's a guy holding you, partly because there's bars stopping you falling and partly because they whisk you through so fast by the time you realise the position you're in they're already pulling you back up.
After kissing the fabled stone, I took off for a walk around the grounds. At the bottom of the castle are a couple of caves and dungeons that you can go through, although you have to provide your own light and after I retrieved my torch from the car I had a great time doing a little caving. The dungeons in particular were fairly tight and I had to crouch down and squeeze through, making my way through almost on my hands an knees. I did not expect to go caving when I went to Blarney Castle.
After the small caving expedition I went and had a look at the Druids Grove in the grounds where a Celtic druid once lived. There was a stone Druid Circle and a Sacrificing Alter along with a few other mystical formations. While taking a walk around the grounds I stopped by a river and while I was sitting there quietly an Otter (or it may have been a Mink) came swimming by quite close. It stopped to look at me for a second or two before swimming on, it was awesome!

Today we just got back from a weekend near Dublin where we went to an old burial mound that dates back to 500 years before the great pyramids were built. It was built in such a way that on the Winter Solstice, providing it isnt cloudy (a fairly rare thing in Ireland, particularly in winter) the rays of the morning sun shine through a hole and illuminate the chamber within the mound.

Anyway, its just gone Monday (its about 2am here) and Ill be flying out to Leeds Bradford and going up to York on Wednesday where Ill be staying with some more relatives of which the link is so complicated I cant be bothered working it out. Ill just stick with distant cousin or something like that.

Have fun.