Leprachauns, Shamrocks and Potatoes! Feckin' great craic!

Day 107: Ireland via Munich



Our last bus about leg from Lauterbrunnen to Munich via Lucerne – quite sad really. Bus About has been great to us – awesome road crew and we’ve met some really awesome people. Tear.


It was a miserable day when we left Switzerland so we didn’t feel like we were missing out on much considering the down pour that followed us all the way to Germany.


We stopped briefly in Lucerne – only one hour from Lauterbrunnen. Our bus driver Paul (a kiwi) had gotten us really excited about these sausage rolls which he usually gets when he stops in Lucerne. We hurried off the bus and eagerly followed him down the street – Totti has been craving a sausage rolls for ages and always says the first thing she is going to eat when she gets back is a sausage roll and meat pie from the Erindale Bakery! Anyways, back to Lucerne and the sausage rolls. We enter the bakery and try to spot the SR (yes, we’ve abbreviated sausage rolls)...no deal. Totti asks the lady “Can we please have 2 sausage rolls? Danke...”......”Ah....ve have no tuday. Only ve has de rolls on Monday to Vriday.” FML. We were starving too. FML FML FML. Totti’s enthusiasm for the day died instantly – no more happy Totti. We were determined to find some sort of food on this cold, wet day. We finally found another bakery and got ourselves a ham like roll and a vego pastry thing which the sweet lady heated up for us. Needless to say we were not happy with Paul when we got back.


We drove for a few more hours and finally hit a little town called Neuschwanstein. This town is famous for its fairytale like design. A huge castle looks over the town – we are told that the Disney castle was based upon this castle. Nice. Well it was still raining so we had a quick stop and a opportunity to photograph the castle before stopping for lunch.


We arrived in Munich at about 6pm and settled ourselves into the hostel. We decided to go for a little wander to see what Munich had to offer. What did we find, you ask? Mmmm....lots of drunk people, lots of Lauderhosen (leather pants), lots of traditional german clothes and plenty of beer gardens and halls. We amused ourselves by going into the traditional german clothes shops and laughing at their outfits – Totti really wanted to buy one but they don’t come cheap...200 euro for a dress. Pass.


We got some pizza and walked back to our hostel where we agreed that the best way to give this city a fair chance would be to do the walking tour in the morning.


Day 108:


We got up reasonably early, showered and checked out of the Wombats. The free tour ran from the hostel daily from 11am so we sat around and waited with other like minded tourists.


Our tour guide was a black man named Aussie – he was full of knowledge and history about Munich and provided us with what we think was the best tour we have done so far. What we got out of it? Well....the world’s history could have changed completely had Hitler not been informed of a meeting between a party of Bavarian officials to discuss Bavaria’s separation from Germany. It probably doesn’t make sense however....Munich is the capital of the Bavarian country which is where the Nazi movement began. Anyways....if ever in Munich, definitely take this tour. It was well worth it.


The tour went for 3hrs and we finished with lunch and beer in the Hofbrauhaus – a traditional beer hall. We shared a mixed plate of all different kind of sausages...delicious. We also tried a regular Vice beer (a local Munich beer) which was really quite nice. Not bitter at all yet it was 8% alcohol. The Bavarians drink this beer for breakfast so it tends to be lighter than the other beers.


We made our way back to the hostel at about 4pm, got our luggage and jumped on the train to the airport...destination: Dublin, Ireland.


God bless Aer Lingus, we say! We waited with baited breath as the lady at the check in counter weighed our luggage - our 2 backpacks weighing in at about 20kg each, PLUS our suitcase which is now weighing in at 17kg. We got away with checking in all our luggage and paid ZERO in excess baggage fees. Yeyah! Off to a great first impression Ireland.


We arrived in Dublin at 11pm and went straight to bed.


Day 109: Dublin to Killarney


Day 1 of our 7 day All Ireland Shamrocker tour. We met our guide, Murf – hilarious and probably the best example of a typical Irish stereotype. Cheeky, wicked funny, drinks Guinness for breakfast lunch and tea and an all round nice guy. Again our tour was pretty much all Aussie apart from two American guys and a girl from Switzerland.


Our bus driver, Brenda is apparently the “most rootinest, tootinest bus driver in all of Ireland”, and so with everyone on the bus we headed for Kilarney. Murf introduced us to some local Irish lingo; Feck (polite version of the obvious), Gobsheit (an idiot/wanker) andCraic – generally you ask someone “What’s the Craic?”, which is like, what’s happening? What’s news? It is also a way to rate a night out, or a special occasion. You would respond with one of the following: Good Craic, Grand Craic, Mighty Craic and Lethal Craic depending on how good it was.


We passed the River Liffey on the way to Cashel. We stopped at a supermarket at stocked up on some lunch treats before heading to the amazing Mitchelstown Caves. The caves were quite impressive – they said that they believe the caves are pre-ice age. We saw some cool rock formations and the biggest column (when the stalagmites and stalactites meet) in Europe.


We drove past the army barracks, not entirely interesting, except we were told that the war scene in Braveheart where all the soldiers moon the British was filmed there, which is cool. Apparently Scotland doesn’t look like Scotland on film. LOL.


We then headed through the Golden Vale to Blarney in the rebel county of Cork and then continued through to Kilarney where we stayed the night. On the way we stopped at the Blarney Castle where the famous Blarney stone is. There’s a whole history there, but basically it has become famous because it supposedly gives you the gift of the gab. So now it is a popular tourist attraction where you get lowered backwards and you have to kiss the stone. Very famous people such as Winston Churchill have kissed the stone, and more modern celebrities such as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have given it a good smooch. Yay, we made out with Brad Pitt! And probably contracted some foul strand of lip herpes from the other hundreds of mouths who have pashed the stone. Yummy. From there it was back on the bus and onto Kilarney.


A quick shower and it was time to explore the Kilarney nightlife. It’s a small little town with about 5 pubs. Tonight we were going to watch some Tea Theatre performed by Pa. Lots of Irish poems and songs and then the main story was of a man whose pub was closing down and he was reminiscing about all the people that use to drink there. Pa was a very interesting character – we have never seen anyone drink like this man. He literally hoovered through at least 6 pints of Guinness and 2 shots of Jameson’s whiskey in the space of his performance, which lasted a grand total of one hour. Instead of taking an occasional sip, it was as if he just sucked the drink down in one huge breathless gulp. He would then casually sip the remaining dregs. He gave skulling a whole new meaning. Any ordinary person would have been in hospital getting their stomach pumped. This guy was still standing upright.


We all headed back to the hostel reflecting on Pa’s drinking abilities, and called it a night.


Day 110: Killarney to Ennis


Ireland has an amazing landscape; it’s rugged and fierce, cliffs, sea, rock formations everywhere. But it is also very beautiful and green, with lots of old elm trees and oak trees, rolling hills and pastures, castle ruins etc. You get the picture – but it is absolutely stunning and it is very well worth a visit. And so today was all about breathtaking scenery and adventure. We spent the day exploring the dramatic Dingle Peninsula. We walked to the top of the most West Point in Ireland – where in true Shamrocker tradition, all the boys took their tops off and we all took photos. Our guide, Murf, entertained us with a story about the sleeping giant – a huge rock formation in the middle of the sea that looks like...you guess it, a sleeping giant (go figure!).


We stopped in Dingle for lunch where we had a home style cooked meal in the local pub, and then tried some of the famous dingle ice cream. They had this flavour called “brown bread”, which literally had brown bread in it. We cringed at the initial thought, but it ended up tasting really good! On the way to the bus, with ice cream in hand, we were happily admiring the colourful buildings when a little dog ran out into the traffic and caused all the cars to beep loudly and slam on their breaks. The thing was going nuts and had no idea which direction to turn. Of course, being dog lovers, Totti and I were scared for the poor bugger. I guess you had to be there for this to be funny, but all of a sudden Totti starts yelling at the top of her lungs “OI OH MY GOD, ITS A DOG, ITS A DOG, ITS A DOG!!! AARRRGGGHHH”, actually, that’s probably what she tried to say – what came out was just a long winded, incoherent yelling sound with lots of frantic hand gestures. I absolutely wet myself laughing, and informed her that yelling frantically and waving her arms in the air was definitely a very gallant rescue method and would without a doubt successfully stop the dog from being run over. Then we both laughed, the yelling seemed to attract the attention of the entire street :p We then caught the ferry over the mighty Shannon river to County Clare and spent the night in Ennis.


Day 111: Ennis to Galway


Today we visited the awesome Cliffs of Moher – very impressive but very windy. Now that we both have a wild mane of hair, we spent most of the time admiring the cliffs through our fringes. After lunch we explored the weird and magical world of the Burren – Ireland’s lunar landscape and home to ancient tombs, fairies and leprechauns! We visited what is known as a Fairy Ring; legend has it that when Oak trees form in a perfect circle it means that Fairies reside there. You are only allowed to walk clockwise around the Fairy Ring, you aren’t allowed to swear there and you aren’t allowed to enter the centre of the ring. You are also meant to make a wish, then thank the Fairies in the Gaelic language once you exit the ring. If you break any of these rules, your wish will not be granted and the Fairies will get their revenge by making something bad happen to you. Murf was not a superstitious bloke, but he said that he had some stupid Gobsheit’s on his previous tours who decided to break the rules and their bus broke down. We all obliged the Fairies that day, and thankfully nothing bad happened. We are still waiting for our wishes to come true though :p


We arrived in Galway mid afternoon and went off to explore Shop Street. Galway is Ireland’s cultural capital and festival city. We had a chilled out night, cooked ourselves dinner at the hostel and just relaxed, as the next night we would all go out as a group and enjoy the nightlife.


Day 112: Inis Mór (Aran Islands)


Today we caught the ferry over to Inis Mor. We hired bikes and rode around – pretty much the most exciting part of the ride was when we had to stop because my bike chain broke and I had to fix it, leaving me with blackened, greasy hands for the rest of the day. We stopped at the “seal colony” mind you, one single seal frolicking in the sea is hardly a fecking colony. Fail! We then stopped along side some random paddocks and patted some random Donkeys. We were very much amused when the Donkeys responded to us calling “Hey Donkey” original, we know! We were sick of riding so we decided to return our bikes to the hire place and then went into a little shop to have a look around. We still had a couple of hours to kill before the ferry headed back to the mainland. Everyone on our tour was singing this song “Lisdonvarna” of which we all only knew the chorus “oooohhh, Lisdonnvarna, a Lisdon Lisdon Lisdon Varna”. Totti busted out into song just as we were on our wait out the door and the shopkeeper cursed her, as he would now have that “flamin’ song stoock in me head for the rest of the deeyyy!”. He convinced us to stay and have a cup of tea with him and it turned out that we whiled away the afternoon in his little souvenir shop listening to his stories about his travels. He had some interesting stories, it turned out his ex wife was an Italian woman, and he told us a story of when he was out to dinner with the family one night. He said a waitress approached him to ask him if he’d like some wine, and he thought he would try to impress mum and dad by showing off his Italian skills. So when the waitress asked him if he’d like some wine, he confidently responded “Un Bocchina” – now, he had intended to say “Poccino” which means “a little bit” but unfortunately for him, and much to the horror of the entire restaurant, he had in fact responded with “Bocchina”, which means “blow job” in Italian. Well.... The mother basically died. The father bought him a shot of Grappa. Bless. Too funny. We then went on you tube and watched the clip to Lisdonvarna, because he couldn’t get it out of his head. An afternoon well spent!


Once back on the main land, Merf ordered the group 20 pizzas before we all got ready to go out. We went to this pub called The Quays and Totti and I found ourselves a spot behind the band. A lovely group of middle aged Irish men adopted us, and we offered our back up dancer skills to them. We were band groupies, much to the amusement of our fellow Shamrockers – we put on quite a dance show featuring a dance routine we have spent this entire vacation putting together. It’s pretty impressive! After The Quays, we went to this bar/club called Coyotes. It had a mechanical bull and a small stage and played all the current top 40 songs, as well as the classic 90’s pop. We continued to put on our dance performance, we did the running man, ghosted some people and started a game of limbo; we were the limbo bar, we held our arms out and let everyone pass underneath. Initially we were just taking the piss out of everyone, but then people just started doing the limbo, good times! We couldn’t pass up a go on the mechanical bull – definitely one of the funniest things we have done. The video footage is priceless, we’re sure you’ll enjoy it once we show you :)


So overall it was a really great night out and we were looking forward to dominating our next group dance session :)


Day 113: Galway to Derry


As we moved up into Northern Ireland, it was time to prepare ourselves for some of the country’s more sombre historic moments. We were about to enter the city where the Bloody Sunday murders happened. Merf briefed us on the bus ride into Derry; he gave us a background and a really great insight into the history surrounding the issue. Without going into too much detail, there was a lot more to it than just Catholic v Protestant. Once we arrived in Derry we were given a walking tour by a local elderly man. He was one of the most lovely people we have had the pleasure of meeting throughout our travels and gave the most touching account of the Troubles I think we will ever hear. He had known people who died in the Bloody Sunday murders and had personally met the Reverend who held the white flag in the famous photographs of the Bloody Sunday shooting. He held the entire group’s attention from start to finish, you could tell he had lived through it and he cried while telling us the story. His attachment to all the victims that lost their lives and for the suffering of the families who were still mourning their losses was very overwhelming. It was only in June of this year that all the Bloody Sunday victims were proven innocent. He said that the people rejoiced – finally, the longest inquiry in history had been laid to rest.


We got to see all the famous murals and got to walk along the famous walls before heading back to the hostel for some dinner and early night.


Day 114: Derry to Belfast


First stop of today: the battlements of Dunluce Castle. It seemed that our good weather had finally come to an end, the clouds began to roll in and a bitter wind had picked up. We hoped that the rain would hold out, at least for a little while. Dunluce Castle was pretty cool – probably the most interesting thing that happened there was that the entire kitchen fell away into the sea one night when the occupants of the castle were holding a banquet in the great hall. By this stage it had started spitting so we all clambered back onto the bus to thaw out, and headed down the road to the eighth natural wonder of the world – The Giant’s Causeway. It’s a pretty impressive sight to see – basically when the lava cooled in the ocean, because it cooled down gradually, it formed these perfect hexagonal columns which extend out into the sea. It’s pretty cool, so we enjoyed the awesome view and climbed up and down the causeway for a while. By this stage it had started raining steadily, the hike back to the bus was not fun, and we were all soaked through to the bone and freezing. Our 3 euro umbrella from Madrid finally packed it in, and the dream was over!


We all stepped onto the bus looking like drowned rats and drove to our final destination before stopping in Belfast for the night - the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. This bridge extends about 25 metres and connects to a small island standing roughly 30m above sea level. The bridge use to be used by the fishermen – they used it to bring up nets of Salmon from the ocean. The most entertaining part of crossing the bridge was making it rock up and down, much to the distaste of most people, we however found it pretty amusing. Totti kangaroo hopped all the way across, and lined up immediately in the line to come back, so she could bound across for round 2. The rain had eased up, but it was still drizzling steadily – by this stage we were all more than happy to get out of the wind and the rain and head to the hostel for a nice hot shower!


Tonight we were gearing up to see what Belfast had to offer. We started off at a pub called The Crown – it had ornately carved wooden panelling in the ceiling and floors, it was a very cool place indeed. I decided to try my luck at steak and gunnies pie (YUMO!) and Totti inhaled a steak. From there we headed to a place called “Filthy McNasty’s” yes, it was really called that, so we had no choice but to go in, just because it was the coolest name for a pub, EVER! While we were out the front, the group was graced by the company of two lovely ladies at a hen’s night (we have no idea where the rest of them were) but these two were sporting lovely inflatable penises for an accessory. Needless to say it was absolutely hilarious, these two were as bogan as they come, and they were off their chops drunk. One of the girls on our tour borrowed the inflatable penis, strapped it on, and proceeded to “have a cock fight with a cock” A thankyou. Too funny!!! So after this lovely little encounter, we moved onto a place similar to say..... the bottom level of Uni Pub mixed in with King O’Malley’s. It was pretty cool, but we got bored fairly quickly as the music was average. The most entertaining thing about this place was that there were shots entitled “deep throats” and that Merf can do an Austin power’s dance to a tee. Hilarious! We moved on to a place called The Botanical – more commercial top 40 music, but the place was crawling with Gobsheit’s so we didn’t really stay long. Overall we thought we’d done well, the usual ghosting and dance routines we displayed and so we decided to call it a night :)


Day 115: Belfast to Dublin


This morning we took a Black Cab tour of Belfast city. We visited the Loyalist and Republican heartlands of the city where we learned more about the Troubles and the Peace Wall. We saw more political murals and explored the city in our taxi with a real Belfast local at the wheel. That only took a couple of hours, so after that we hung around at the hostel for a while, as it was cold and rainy again today. For lunch we returned to The Crown and enjoyed one last meal of Irish stew and another steak and Guinness pie. We left the politics behind and headed back towards to Dublin. En route we stopped off to see a ruined monastery with High Celtic Crosses; these things are massive and very impressive. The crosses depict the story of Jesus and are intricately carved. It was a relatively cruisey day and we arrived back in Dublin at about 4.30pm. We said goodbye to our Shamrocker buddies and went to suss out some dinner: fresh fish and chips, yes please! It was slightly ironic eating our dinner while watching the film Shark Tale...lol.. But none the less, it tasted delicious :p After dinner we decided to get one last taste of Irish culture, and went to see some Irish dancing. It was pretty impressive, and we have now decided to add this to our list of potential professions once we return home :p


After a nice hot shower, it was time to turn in for the night, as we would be catching an early ferry over to merry old England the next morning. Time for some tea and scones, innit!


A big shout out to the Shamrocker group, thanks for a great week. Ireland has been seriously Grand Craic and we had a blast!


Wishin’ you all top o the mornin’. Fiddley dee, potatoes!


Say hi to your dad for us,


Love Kate & Ela xxxx