Sunday 31 July 2011

Doolin, second half of the day.

After my hasty picture-less post about the cave yesterday, I went on to see the cliffs of Moher, which are an absolute must when you're in the area. I asked the guy running the Hostel what the best way to see them was. Now, there's an official visitor's centre for the cliffs which, naturally, is very touristy. If you haven't noticed yet, I'm not a big fan of overly touristy things. So Karl, the hostel guy, said I shouldn't bother with it and there's a way to see the cliffs without paying for it anyway. He then proceeded to explain a detailed and very sketchy-sounding route that would involve jumping a gate, walking dangerously close to the cliffs (jumping the fence into the next-door paddock when the path got too close) and generally wandering off into almost certain death or prosecution. Skeptical, I decided to at least go as far as the beginning of the path. One look down it and I thought better of the idea. Subsequently I realised I maybe should have risked it, but I'll get to that later.
So then I headed off to Gus O'Connor's, which was right round the corner, for a quick bite to eat. As luck would have it, a session was currently in progress in the pub with three musicians. One of them was even playing the uillean pipes, which I had the pleasure of hearing live for the first time. Good thing, then, I thought, that I didn't decide to risk my life and try to see the cliffs down that little goat-path.
Instead I decided to take a bus to the cliffs. Upon arrival I discovered the cliffs were free to see anyway. However, the visitor's centre is tacky and touristy, and as for the cliffs themselves - well, they're cliffs. They're mighty impressive, but there's not a lot to say about them. That's why I've included pretty pictures! I would have liked to wander a bit further up and down the cliffs - there was a decent path to follow for quite a while - but the weather had decided to take a dislike to all the tourists and was blustering and spitting and being generally untoward. And of course I was the only chump there with short sleeves. They were selling rain ponchos at the centre, but there's no way I was paying €2.50 for what amounts to a garbage bag with holes in it.

After the cliffs I went back to McGann's Pub. A friend I had made in Cork, Lauren, was going there to drink away the cold, and I had nothing else planned so far so I decided to join her. Whilst sitting there, throwing back pints of Guinness, I realised there was one more thing I wanted to do in Doolin, and that was to see the Burren. Burren in Gaelic means rocky place. Basically the whole area is Karst, which means the ground is all limestone, hence all the caves. It also makes for truly spectacular and unique scenery. A few miles out from Doolin there's the Burren National Park, but it's much too far for walking to be an option, and techinigally the whole area is part of the Burren, not just the park. The few pints of Guinness I had had made me feel invincible by this stage, so I bravely marched back to my hostel and demanded Karl give me directions to a good place to see the Burren. These directions sounded even more sketchy than the Cliffs of Moher directions - I was to follow the tiny road next to the Hostel out toward the sea. When I get to a gate that looks like its the end of the road with a sign saying "beware of Bull" I was to simply pass by to the right of it. A tumbling dirt track would then lead me to two iron gates. I was to hop over the first one and cut across the fields until I reached the sea. I could then follow that around and get as much of the Burren as I pleased. The Alcohol still coursing through my veins still gave me courage and I strode off. And let me tell you, it was one of the best experiences of my life.
Before I even got the the "Beware of Bull" sign I noticed the landscape around me becoming very dramatic and somehow alien. After jumping the iron gate and walking for a couple of minutes it became truly stunning. I didn't have to worry about anything too touristy - the only traces of civilisation I could see after a while were the waist-height stone walls probably built 200 years ago. Like the cliffs, pictures serve here better than words. But bear in mind that like caves, pictures will never truly do justice to the feeling of actually being there.
Karl had told me it would take me about half an hour to walk, but I'd probably take longer as I would want to take it all in. At first I didn't believe him, but a believer was made of me when I returned an hour and a half later. Then all that was left was to return to McGann's pub and wax lyrical to Lauren about how awesome it truly was. Her reaction was exactly the same as my initial reaction to Karl's directions.






Pub Challenge, No.s 17-22

At last, the long-awaited update. Finally a chance to access the internet from a decent computer!
Well,  okay - the keyboard is worn out. And I mean REALLY worn out, and the OS seems to have developed some cantankerous quibbles, but at least I can upload some pictures!

Eviston House, Killarney

The Stretford End, Killarney
Mc Dermott's Inn, Doolin
McGann's Pub, Doolin
FitzPatrick's Bar, Doolin

  
Gus O'Connor's, Doolin
You'll notice the last 4 pubs were all in Doolin. Doolin only has 4 pubs, and I did them all in the same night. For some reason I'm very proud of that fact.

Saturday 30 July 2011

Killarney - a retrospective

I'm going to have to do this real quick, because this internet cafe is preposterously expensive. Here, as promised, are the last photos from Killarney: the Poor Man's Gap of Dunloe tour.
View of Ross Castle from the long way around Lough Leane

From the Boat on Lough Leane

The Meeting of the Three Waters - from here you can get to all three lakes.

Apparently this cottage was built specifically for one single party,
attended by queen victoria. Surprisingly this wasn't the most frivelous
building I've seen in this area...

Doolin Cave

Well, still no photos. I found an internet cafe, but naturally the stupid computer doesn't recognize my camera. So I'll just quickly describe what I did this morning.
I went to the local cave, Doolin Cave. This one, unlike the Dunmore caves, is privately owned, as the cost of the ticket would suggest. It cost three times as much as Dunmore. And to be honest, I think I got a third of the value out of it. The one thing this cave can boast is supposedly the largest free-hanging stalactite accessible to the ublic in the world. And it is fairly impressive. Now, I don't have any problems with making this post without any photos because I didn't take any photos. I don't like taking photos in caves for a number of reasons. Firstly, with my little automatic camera, the flash tends to wash everything out and the photos look terrible. When photos are concerned I much prefer quality over quantity. In fact, after any outing I usually delete over half the photos I took. If there's one thing I can't stand it's being shown somebody's holiday snaps, and each photo is taken five times from different, yet equally bad angles. It's a tedium I wouldn't wish on anyone.
The other reason why I don't like to take pictures in caves is because they never capture the 'feeling' of the cave. A cave, for me, is something you have t experience as a whole, not in little snapshots. It doesn't do justice to it. It's like taking a picture of a steaming hot bath. The bath might have been fantastic, but who cares about the picture? That being said, you will have noticed I took a handful of shots at Dunmore, such as the bat skeleton. This I would liken to taking a picture of the bathtub's feet because of their interesting, victorian design.
Besides, the cave wasn't that great anyway, as I said. Horribly developed I would say. It was originally discovered in the 1950s by a couple of students from england, surveying caves in the area. They found a tiny, thin underground passage through which they crawled for two hours to arrive at the chamber that houses the stalactite. This passageway has in the last few years been enlarged to accomodate visitors, and has more of the feeling of a mine tour. And not even a good mine tour. A good mine tour is of a mine with pedigree and history. This one is only a handful of years old and serves just to get you to the chamber. The chamber itself is then dominated by a massive, blocky concrete staircase winding down to the bottom, and the whole thing is garishly lit by glaring spotlights. Spotlights in a cave should be used tastefully and sparingly, or else they ruin the soul of it. This cave felt like a broadway production.
There is a second chamber too, but this one is just as developed and doesn't even boast any impressive formations - just one boring fuzzy looking thing that's apparently quite rare. And the final thing I want to mention is the shaft that leads to the 'mine'. This one is the worst of all. It's a wide concrete tube with a metal staircase, and the whole thing looks like it could have come out of the movie Total Recall.
All in all, it was a fairly disappointing cave. But that said, I think I was going in expecting little and it may have influenced my experience. Still, if you see one cave in Ireland, there are better ones than this.

Friday 29 July 2011

Quick shout out

This is just a quick post to let you know I'm not dead. I can't currently upload any photos as I'm using a hostel computer where I don't have access to the case, so I'll keep this one brief and try to get to an internet cafe tomorrow and do the real thing.

So, today I left Killarney for Doolin. Doolin is a tiny little town on the west coast of Ireland right near the Cliffs of Moher. Now, the connections aren't direct and buses don't run there very often. From Killarney I could only get one at 10am or 2pm. Wish I had known that the day before when I booked a tour for the Gap of Dunloe! The tour was supposed to start at 10:30, and wouldn't arrive back in Doolin until after 4. That would leave me stuck. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice little town, but I sorta wanted to get on with my holiday. So, in short I got up early, refunded my ticket and did what I call the "poor man's Gap of Dunloe".
Now, the Gap of Dunloe is a pass through the mountains which was carved out during the last ice age. The bus would have set me off at the entrance to the pass, and I would have walked through it to the upper lake and taken a boat through the three lakes to end up back at Ross Castle, and the bus back to Killarney. Instead, I simply walked to Ross Castle, taking the scenic route around the skirts of the lower lake (Lough Leane), and then took an hour long boat tour from there through two of the lakes. Meh, close enough. It was a nice walk, and the boat tour was spectacular.
So then at 2 O'clock I grabbed the bus to Doolin. Now, as I said the connections aren't direct - I had to change in Limerick. And I can tell you, I'm glad I'm not staying there! The word seedy comes to mind. I don't think I would have liked to walk there at night. And I still have Belfast to look forward to!
Okay. Now here's the fun part - a bit of audience participation! I always underestimate how much longer public transport takes than driving, but even so I wasn't prepared for this. Now, I want you to open up Google Maps and get the directions from Killarney to Doolin. About two and a half hours, right? Now guess what time I arrived, bearing in mind I left at 2 O'Clock.
8pm. Yeah. Fun.
Still, I have a whole day here tomorrow and am leaving again the day after, so I think I should be able to get everything done this time that I wanted to. I've also added a few more pubs to my list, but again you'll have to wait until I can get onto a real computer.

Thursday 28 July 2011

Killarney day 2

Today I did a tour around the Ring of Kerry which runs around the Armagh Peninsula in southwest Ireland. This is possibly the most beautiful part of the country, and I could really spend a lot more time here. But I gotta go again tomorrow!
Cottages like this litter the Ring of Kerry. I didn't take
more photos because clearly photos from a moving bus
look terrible.
The one thing that really strikes me about this area is all the abandoned houses. Noticeably they're all really old cottages, slowly being overgrown. This is, of course, because of the potato famine of the mid 19th century. The Irish really love their spuds, up until the 1840s probably too much because when all the potato crops failed one million people starved in Ireland and two million emigrated. Just before the famine Ireland had its highest population level ever, at about 8 million. These days they only have 4 million. In the rest of Ireland there isn't quite as many abandoned houses because the areas tended to be resettled. A large section of the Armagh peninsula, however, is the Killarney National park, and so settlement there is not really an option. The other problem is parts of the peninsula were among the last in Ireland to get electricity. I would like to stress this point. One valley I passed today didn't have electricity until the 1980s. And then when they finally got it, they wouldn't have been able to watch TV because they're surrounded by mountains. Yeah, doesn't make it sound so enticing... But it would be a beautiful place to live.

So one of the highlights of the tour, apart from the phenomenal scenery, was the sheepdog show. This was one of the first stops, and for five Euro it was certainly impressive. It was just an old bloke with two border collies and six sheep. But the eagerness, promptness and accuracy with which these dogs follow simple whistle commands was truly impressive. I also visited a little museum village displaying a bunch of cottages as they were in the 18th century. It was nice, as these things are, but nothing really blog-worthy. Besides, I'm still trying to get over the remnants of a cold and really don't have the energy or will to write a long, detailed post, so I'll just humour you with a few pictures.


Wednesday 27 July 2011

Killarney day 1, Ross Castle

So, waking up this morning in a swelteringly hot room with a headache from last night and a full-blown sore throat that's been developing over the last couple of days I decided not to take the 8:30 bus to Killarney, but the one later at 9:30. Upon arrival I decided the best way to get rid of my hangover was to walk it off, which I did with a trip to nearby Ross castle, about 3 kilometres away.
Just the walk itself is very pretty, passing through part of Killarney national park. Walking down the winding path between groves of trees and rolling meadows, suddenly the castle emerges round a corner on the edge of Lough Leane. Incredibly picturesque, it looks exactly like you imagine a medieval castle to look. This one is a so-called tower house, which were very popular throughout Ireland in this period with over 3000 having been built. Seriously, they're like a plague. I've seen old abandoned ones just hanging out in farmers' back paddocks, getting in the way and making the place look untidy. This one, however, has been beautifully restored. It slowly became a ruin in the 19th century. At the time there was a particular tax which estate owners had to pay for any properties they own apart from their primary residence known as a roof tax. It means exactly what it sounds like: a property only counts if it has a roof. The then owners, not having any use for the castle as they lived elsewhere, didn't want to pay the tax and so they simply burned the roof down. There is now only one original roof of that style in existence, this one being a replica of the other which is in Dublin. Open to the elements the castle fell into decay until finally it was bought by the state a few decades ago and painstakingly restored. Seriously, taking the tour you are amazed by the attention to detail put into it, from the hand-planed timber of the floors to the exact replication of the two unique roof styles employed by the castle.


As most such buildings it had been repurposed many times in its existence, but originally it had been built to protect against cattle raids. That's right, they built a tower-house to stop people pinching their cows. This was in the 1400s. And the many defense features are surprisingly ingenious, especially the staircase with its deliberately uneven steps to make it difficult to run up without going arse over tit. They even though to chose a clockwise direction for the spiralling stairs to run, because it makes the use of a sword for attackers awkward if they are right-handed.
Overall it was a good tour, even the second time as I did it 4 years ago on my last visit to Ireland. I even impressed the guide with a remembered piece of trivia I had learned the last time!

Pub Challenge #15

Hostel and Pub in one. Dangerous, yet genius combination.

Murphy's Irish Stout, how I've missed you these 4 years.

Tuesday 26 July 2011

Pub Challenge numbers 11 to 14

I was going to make a Langton's Ant joke
but I thought it would be too predictable.


Supposedly one of the best pubs in Ireland, I was
somewhat unimpressed. A bit too "family friendly", and
the supposedly trad irish band had, in lieu of a tin whisle
a creepy, beardy man with a flute.


Kyteler's inn, named after Kilkenny's famous witch
Dame Alice Kytler, who supposedly poisoned
three of her husbands. You'd think the third one would
have had a bit more sense...

Surprisingly, the beer Kilkenny is quite hard to find in
Kilkenny. Smithwick's seems to be the order of the
day in most places, though I'm drinking Kilkenny here.


The third and final pub I did that night. Also the best with
the best music.
 
The bar at the end of the Jameson's tour. I decided to count
this one, even though I didn't have a beer because
Jameson's is tasty.

Cork, Jameson's distillery

When travelling abroad it's sometimes hard to keep up with current events in the world. I've sorta picked up on the fact there was some kind of shooting in Norway, and another junkie celebrity has kicked the bucket. But somehow I guess I missed the war between Germany and Ireland. Seriously, first my SIM card that I bought in Germany and was supposed to be free roaming didn't work here, and then I find out the German bank card I have doesn't work either! The only explanation I can come up with is that the Irish President said something untoward about Kaiser Wilhelm's mother and after that they weren't on speaking terms. And of course the one day I spent rushing around all frustrated and stressed is the warmest day I've had here in Europe. Then finally late this afternoon I decided on a whim to try my card one more time in a different ATM and I discover that the Germans must have finally worked out that Kaiser Wilhelm has been dead for quite some time, and nobody really cares about his mother. So apparently the two countries are on speaking terms again, although my SIM card still doesn't work. Oh well.
So, because I spent most of the day in Cork running around, making phone calls, trying to work out what's going on with my card, I didn't get much of the sightseeing done that I had hoped to. I really had time only to quickly take a train to Midleton and the Jameson distillery. As I've mentioned before, it's quite a good little tour. The whole grounds has been beautifully restored and set up for tourists. While very accomodating for tourists, it still isn't as commercial as the Guinness storehouse. Of course they do subtly (sometimes not so subtly) try to flog their whiskey at every turn hoping to make a killing in the gift shop.
So the tour naturally takes you around the grounds and through the whole process of making the whiskey. Jamesons made whiskey here from the late 18th century right until the 1970s. Now, the Dungourney river must feel quite pressured by Jameson's, because the water from it is used in malting the barley, fermenting the wort and finally blending with the distilled spirit. While the old grounds at Midleton were still in use the river was also used to power the water wheel and, when too low for the water wheel, probably also fuelled the backup steam engine. The over 100 year old engine was in use right up to the time when the old distillery closed. Now the new grounds are right next door. The old distillery also has the biggest copper still in the world, no longer in use.
So that's really all I managed to accomplish today. Now I'm off to have a pint downstairs. Oh, did I forget to mention my hostel is also a pub?

Monday 25 July 2011

Kilkenny

So, after getting up at an ungodly hour to catch the train to Kilkenny, I catch the train to Kilkenny. Promptly I am transported via said train to the town of Kilkenny.
It's a beautiful little medieval town, with exactly the kind of winding streets and olden times houses as you would expect of a little medieval town in the middle of Ireland. The first thing you're greeted with as you exit the train station, provided you don't wander off in the wrong direction to begin with (as I may or may not have done), is a pretty little church in an immaculately maintained churchyard. So, following the perfectly simple directions laid out to me by the website of the hostel I was to stay in I managed to go down the wrong street within 10 minutes. I began to suspect this was the case 5 minutes later, and my suspicions were confirmed when I arrived again at the train station. I promptly removed my jumper, convincing myself that it was because all this walking around was getting me too hot, but secretly hoping that all the people I had passed would not recognize me and realize I was the ignorant tourist I am.
So, after finally finding the hostel, the serious sightseeing began. First was the dominating feature of the city, Kilkenny castle. Like the places I refused to see in Dublin, I had been this before. However, it's the kind of place worth seeing twice. As I found out, the guided tour I took last time unfortunately no longer runs, and you have to see the whole place solo with a little information sheet explaining every room. Still, it was interesting and I re-learned a number of things I had forgotten from last time. A castle has stood here for over 8 centuries (he paraphrases from his guide pamphlet) and was the traditional home of the prestigious Butler family for almost 600 years. The last butler died only a few years ago, so the family, no longer getting any personal service, moved into a local hotel. Apparently the last surviving Butler sold the castle for a token 50 pounds.
So, after Kilkenny castle I took one of those road train city tours you know from just about every city you've been to. The tour itself wasn't that noteworthy for a blog, but I will be drawing from what I learned from it throughout, so it wasn't a complete waste of money. Besides, it gave me something to do until 12:45 when the bus to the Dunmore Caves arrived.
There's only one bus that goes in that relative direction. As I understand it, a lot of "public" busses in Ireland actually consists of privately owned coaches that go on whatever route they decide is worth doing. As such the advice I've been used to getting is along the lines of "just wait at the stop between such and such a time and it should be there" and "make sure you ask the driver when he thinks he'll be back that way". Still, it all went well, although the dropoff to the caves was about a kilometre from the actual caves. I don't mind walking. And the caves were truly phenomenal. Being state owned, entrance to the caves was relatively cheap, and the tour was fantastic. As you would expect there was a fair amount of geology explained as well as a small amount of biology, regarding bats and whatnot, but what a lot of caves don't have yet this one does is History. I won't bore you with the obligatory explanation of cave formation, but the history was truly interesting. Now, Kilkenny lies directly on the way between Dublin and Waterford, and in the 10th century the vikings ruling the former and the vikings ruling the latter decided to have a bit of a war. On the way to battle, the Dublin army passed by a small settlement directly near the caves. The vikings thought they could make some nice slaves of the townspeople, so the peasants hid themselves in the caves. The men apparently tried, unsuccessfully, to defend the mouth of the cave while the women and children hid inside. The vikings, after mopping the floor with the poorly equipped farmer men, lit enormous fires within the caves to smoke the others out. Many of them died inside as the fires drank all the oxygen and they suffocated. What a pleasant bedtime story. Particularly interesting is the fact that a major viking hoard of treasure was found in the cave only in 1999, in an embarassingly obvious spot only a metre or two from the main tour path. The cave has been operating tours since at least the 1970s.
Dunmore Cave's resident Bat
slowly being encased in carbonite

So after visiting the cave I returned to the bus stop and waited an hour for the damn bus. Back in Kilkenny I visited my final attraction, St. Canice's cathedral. I sort of feel like I should know what St. Canice was famous for, but honestly even after my second visit I have no idea. I do know, however, that the Gaelic translation of Canice is where Kilkenny gets its name. The interesting part of the cathedral, however, was the round tower standing outside. This was built in the 9th century presumably to allow people to spit on the heads of unsuspecting passers by. I have a thing for climbing monuments, so I slogged up the 6 sets of stairs (more like ladders, but anyway), to get a view of the city. After that I was thoroughly shagged out, so I decided to do some more pubs. That's for the next post.

Pub challenge No.s 7-10

Full Irish breakfast - the greatest meal known to man






Dublin Sightseeing

Before you ask, here are a few things I didn't do/see in Dublin:
Guinness Storehouse
Jameson's distillery


Back of the Guinness Distillery,
if it'll shut you up.

I  visited the Guinness storehouse 4 years ago, and honestly didn't think it was worth a second go. It's very institutional and touristy and, frankly, more of a theme park than a museum. And it costs an arm and a leg. The Jameson's distillery is a damn sight better, but not as good as the one in Cork and offers nothing extra on that one, so I thought I'd save it as well until then.
What I did on my one sightseeing day was visit two museums, drink some Guinness and walk around a lot.
First I took a a few snaps of Dublin Castle. You know, because that's what you do when you're a tourist in Dublin. Courtesy of Wikipedia: it was built after the Norman invasion in the early 13th century for all the normal reasons one builds a castle: protection of the city and the King's treasure, for the administration of Justice and for really sick rave parties.
Arse of Dublin Castle
The Irish Elk's preferred method of
locomotion was windsurfing with
rollerskates

Of course it's also famous for being hugely important in the Irish war of Independance in the early 20th century. It was of course the "nerve centre" of the resistance, and on "Bloody Sunday", the 21st of November 1920, when the war really escalated, three important nationalists were killed there by the british.
It seems I travelled all the way from
Australia to Ireland to see Australian animals
So then I headed off to the Natural History museum which I didn't manage to see last time here. Obviously they had something against me then, because it was closed for maintainance. This time, however, it was mercifully open. Now, generally I don't take many pictures in museums, but I took two in this one. Typically museum pictures are boring as batshit to everybody, including the people who were there taking the bloody photos. But there was one thing I had to take a picture of: the Giant Irish Deer. Now these were dirty great big buggers of deer. Just look at those antlers!
Of course it died out over 7000 years ago. Hard to imagine why - I sure as hell wouldn't want to mess with one!
By the way, I would like to apologize for the format of the photos on this page. Blogspot is being very difficult.