Northern Ireland and Ireland - March 2006

We flew into Belfast expecting little except to stay a night with Pete and his family at a hostel they had booked, have a few beers and catch up. We had also planned to take a walking trip through either the Falls Road area or the Shankhill Road area, Catholic and Protestant, respectively. This proved to be rather interesting.

Not having any particular preference in which side to head to and not having any great religious affiliation or problem with either group, we headed to the Belfast tourist centre and asked about the walking tour. They were rather helpful and they rang the group who organised the tour through the Catholic area….only a few pounds each, laughing.

Pete and his family in Belfast

Off we headed, walking to a large residential tower block where we were to meet our guide.

Turns out the area was 100% catholic, except for the top floor of this apartment block which was formerly occupied by, incredibly, the British Army, who used the top floor as the perfect vantage point to see what the Catholics were up to!

We walked onwards with the tour guide, viewing some of the various murals for which the area is famous for. Eventually we walked to Sinn Fein headquarters, something that we had seen on TV many times before in Australia, so it was interesting to be there and in fact, we headed inside as they have a bookshop. Didn’t go as far as buying any IRA books….after all, not particularly keen to support terrorists, so we headed back outside and continued the tour.

There is a massive wall that separates the two areas, and also a gated area to keep out the Protestants and vice versa. We also learned about all the people who had been murdered on both sides…pretty amazing, and stupid really, but onwards we trundled until the guide noted some people across the road, inspecting some new housing, conveniently paid for by the British taxpayers (ironic isn’t it!). Turns out it was Gerry Adams, Martin McGuiness and Jerry Kelly, the brainstrust of the IRA and now politicians for Sinn Fein.

Jokingly, Samantha said, oh, we should get our photo taken with them…at which the guide said, yeah, great idea and off he started to talk to them….with Samantha saying she was only joking. Our guide had worked with Sinn Fein as he explained later and knew them well. They were all friendly enough and we had our photo taken with them after being in Belfast for a grand total of 4 hours! Speaking later to locals, some had never seen them in ten years of living there!

Sorting out the NI peace process!

We ended the tour later in a cemetery where some nutcases had attacked Catholic mourners in the past and headed on our way to catch up with Pete and his family, who had spent the day up north, in the countryside. (Incidentally, the same nutcase who attacked the mourners has been let out of prison a while ago and the other day (December ), he tried to get into the Northern Ireland Parliament (Stormont), armed with guns and bombs….they had let him out due to some accord and he wasn’t happy with the peace process that has just begun, so he wanted to kill Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness….which made me think that perhaps it wasn’t as safe as we initially thought getting our photo taken with them earlier in the year!!! Still you do what you do and just get on with it, don’t you!)

The following day we headed to Dublin to collect our hire car and we then drove across to Galway, where Pete and Marie's wedding was to be held.

Galway

Irish Weddings are a big thing, and they go for days, well, at least this one did!!!

We had a great time meeting everyone and the Irish hospitality is second to none, let me assure you, as Marie, Peter’s wife, and her family were absolutely brilliant with their hospitality.

We ate, we drank, and we had a great time!

Eventually, a few days later, we went to the wedding and had a great time. It must be noted that the wedding didn’t end at 11pm or midnight as is the case in Australia. Oh no, more like 6 or 7 am and then you go out drinking again the next day! The Irish sure can drink!

Pete and Marie's wedding

We had a great time as mentioned, plus we saved a small dog from certain death, (by contacting the Fire Brigade and insisting very strongly that they come out) as he had been stranded on a ledge above the VERY fast flowing river in Galway. This was our good deed for the day and we were happy that the little fella was saved as he wasn’t happy about his situation, perched precariously above the river.

The small dog we helped with the fantastic Galway Fire Brigade who did the hard work!

After Galway, we travelled to the Cliffs of Moher but unfortunately it was raining and foggy there….who’d have thought it, rain in Ireland!!!! So, we were slightly disappointed, but we don’t worry about the weather as it’s beyond our control, so onwards we travelled.

We did plan to visit the Dingle Peninsula, so we stayed in Dingle overnight and a major highlight was venturing to Ashe’s Hotel in Dingle for a meal.

This was a small, somewhat shabby looking establishment, with a restaurant in what looked like the front living room of a house….but the food….let me say, one word….BRILLIANT!!!!

Samantha ate mussels, with coriander and ginger based soup and I had Guinness and beef pie….continuing with our prevalence for eating as much local food as possible. This meal was truly fantastic.

Dingle Peninsula

The next day we even had a deep fried mars bar….not great, very sweet and I don’t think I’d go for it again, but we tried it. I can still recall the taste very vividly.

We did drive around the Dingle Peninsula and this was a fabulous place to visit…better even than The Ring of Kerry, which we went to straight after. Both are spectacular though, with a highlight being when we were taking some photos at a lookout and we noticed a tractor heading up the road towards us…..let me say that Tractors are wide, slow and a major pain to be stuck behind, so we raced to the car and just managed to beat it onto the road, so we didn’t get stuck behind it!!!!!

We continued through Ireland, visiting Cork briefly and also Cashel, which we discovered accidentally and was quite a nice place. There is a massive rock there, called the Rock of Cashel, and it has a monastery and church atop….this was quite interesting and we visited it the next day. We ended in Dublin….the next day.

Dublin is a decent place but is only a small town….although we did visit the Dublin Post Office, scene of a civil uprising about 100 years ago (still has the bullet holes in the wall). The Guinness factory tour was very interesting….explains about the Guinness making process in great detail and was well worth it, we thought.

Oscar Wilde (or is it Hugh Grant?)

Samantha managed to get a 24 hour virus (the worst illness I have ever had I thought I was dying….Samantha) so she wasn’t too well, but in the meantime, because our hotel was close to Lansdowne Road, the home of Irish Rugby, I walked down there to have a look…very old and in great need of a revamp, which is being done now.

Overall, Dublin was a good town, but not heaps to do there in reality…however, I must say, there are several coloured house doors in Dublin, so I managed to take a photo of as many different coloured house front doors as possible!

Prague - March 2006

We had always intended to head to Prague, Czech Republic, but it turned out to be somewhat sooner than planned.

One of the reasons we headed to England, was to then go across to Peter and Marie’s wedding in Ireland, and with that approaching in late March, we were at a loss as to what to do for a couple of weeks, prior to leaving for Ireland. I had been checking the internet periodically and I decided to do some quick calculations for a short trip to Prague.

Turned out that it was not incredibly expensive in March, mainly due to the cold weather in Prague, so Samantha and I hastily booked some tickets, a hotel, bought a small Prague travel book and off we went, courtesy of Easyjet.

Prague has reputation, along with a number of other European cities, of being a place where British people visit for Stag and Hens nights, so clearly we wanted to avoid these idiots as they are simply interested in getting drunk and nothing else. In the end we saw none of these people, but we tend to move away from the major tourist areas for meals and instead, try to do what the locals do.

Overall, Prague is a beautiful city, especially when it snows as it did when we were there, heavily in fact.

It is very small, but historic and contains loads of great attractions including the Jewish Cemetery, Charles Bridge, a beautiful river, the Royal Castle and many old town squares.


We visited all these attractions and were very impressed, especially with the Jewish Cemetery as we visited this first thing in the morning, after it had snowed reasonably heavily.

Very few people were about, and the fresh, untarnished snow had fallen on the graves and pebbles and we managed to take some great photos and experienced the 13th century graves without other people to annoy us.

We would definitely recommend Prague for a few days as it is very historic, the beer and food is cheap and tasty and it is also a very stylish city in its architecture and layout…plus it has a superb river and bridge.

The North East - February 2006 (onwards)

Lumley Castle from Riverside Cricket Ground, Chester-le-Street

Durham is a great county in the north of England and is also the county where Samantha lived till Robert and Jean decided to head across to Australia.

Samantha also has many relations in the north east and without the great help of the many friendly and kind relations, who have put us up in their homes (for great lengths of time), we would have had to fly back home to Australia, well before now.

Jackie and Richard’s house is in Durham….and a great house it is too.

The Hemmel, as it is known, is a converted barn, dating back many many years, with the genuine possibility that some of the stone is from the long since abandoned Roman ruins in Lanchester.

Richard is a builder and he and his team rebuilt The Hemmel and converted it from a barn into a great home.

The Hemmel also has two dogs, stables with three horses. Hmmmm. Zeus is the grey. He is calm and is a gentleman. Sentinel is Jackie’s daughter, Jess’ horse, and he is a friendly (mostly) tub of lard. Izzy is a thoroughbred and is somewhat flighty. Well, quite flighty. She kicks often.

We decided early on to earn our keep, with Samantha being busy vacuuming (neither of us would recommend a Dyson vacuum cleaner now!), cooking and cleaning, while I became a stable hand. This involved mucking out the stables, putting hay in the stables for the horses to eat, ensuring they had water and just generally getting the stables ready for the horses. I even had a ride in the arena, on Zeus. I was genuinely surprised at how high up you are and let me tell you, it looks far easier than it is, especially when they start walking, let alone galloping……the side to side movement was quite disconcerting to say the least. Anyways, I rode twice in the arena and then declared my retirement from the pastime. Not for me.

We didn’t do too much early on, simply acclimatised, went out and about a little but not much to speak of. However, March 12 was an interesting day as it snowed bigstyle. I captured many great photos of the area covered in snow, which was a real highlight.