SCOTLAND 1 December - 13 December 2011 (Edinburgh, Dunkeld, Loch Ness, Inverness, Skye, Fort William)

G'Day!

We arrived in Edinburgh after a 24 hour trip from Dublin (stopping in Holyhead, Manchester and Glasgow) and were greeted by our wonderful friends Trav and Dweebs who had us at their place for the week. We have been very busy trekking around the magnificant country that is Scotland. We have seen so many gorgeous sites and met some really lovely people! We also joined a 5 Day Macbackpackers Tour of the Highlands! Here is what we have been up to...

EDINBURGH
This gorgeous city has provided us with countless options and we have spent most of our time wandering around, visiting the Christmas Markets, seeing famous sites like the Castle, Authur's Seat and the Princes St Gardens but the most interesting was finding out about the dark history and creepy happenings of times gone by! EJ had a great day for his birthday on the 10th and we took part in the annual Charity Santa Run on the 11th!

 Rhe and Dweebs

 Trav and EJ

 First Snow of the Season!

Edinburgh Castle View

Santa Run!

DUNKELD, DALWHINNEY WHISKY DISTILLERY, LOCH NESS
We stopped at Dunkeld on our way up to Loch Ness on the first day. We had a look around the old cathedral and the fast flowing river! It was already snowing and it looked like a winter wonderland :) We stopped off for the customary whiskey tour and tasting. Scotland sure makes a great wee dram lol.. We went Nessie spotting at the famous loch, but no site of the famous monster haha!

 Dunkeld

 Dalwhinnie Whiskey Distillery

 Loch Ness

Dunkeld

INVERNESS
We continued on to Inverness, a lovely city in the Highlands! After slipping down the hill on the ice we had some dinner and some more drinks in the city! Next morning we visited the iconic Battlefields of Culloden and saw the Black Houses in which they used to live. There was so much snow here and we froze our buts off!

 Inverness

 Battlefields of Culloden

Black House

CLOOTIE WELL
We visited Clootie Well, which is a traditional 'Happy Place' and visitors bring pieces of cloth to the well in the hope it will heal them or a friend. It was an amazing site as the whole area had thousands of pieces of different cloth on it! After this we did a forest walk to a waterfall and it was a gorgeous site, all the new snow offsetting the bare and brown trees.

 Clootie Well

 Rhe and Bree snowing it up

 Waterfall

ISLE OF SKYE
We detoured to the Castle of Eilean Donan and then onto the Isle of Skye. We stayed two nights here and explored the Isle on the middle day. We went to Port Ree and bought some sleds which we would then use to fly down a mountain (once we made the incredible climb!). We had a great time here and then EJ dipped his head in the Sliganchan River for eternal youth haha... We also saw the Kilt Cliffs and it was starting to get very windy!

 Eilean Donan Castle

Port Ree

 Sliganach River Dunking...

Gorgeous Loch


Sliganach River

FORT WILLIAM
We set off to Fort William in 165mph winds and in the middle of Cyclone Bawbag haha!! What a name for a cyclone lol, but all jokes aside we were crapping ourselves haha.. We got to Fort William and couldn't go any further as there was a landslide where we needed to go and a snow storm where we had come from haha! It was very exciting and our driver Graeme has been credited with keeping the bus on the road :)
We ended up spending the night here and there was one supermarket left open so we had dinner and booze too lol! We made it out of Fort William the next morning but we were now a little off course. We visited the Glenfinnian Viaduct (aka the Harry Potter Bridge) and the Boonie Prince Charlie monument! We drove through Pithlochry (still shut) and on to the Willam Wallace monument.

 New Snow!

 Graeme and EJ Sledding!

 Sledder

 Kilt Cliffs

 Scottish Whiskey

Cyclone Bawbag

 Andrew and Rhe

 Hairy Coo's!!

 William Wallace Monument

William Wallace Monument

We arrived back in Edinburgh and Graeme took us to the pub and we had a massive night lol!
We have thoroughly enjoyed our time in Scotland, trying Haggis, crumbed Brie and hanging out with Trav and Dweebs!

Back to London now then the US!!
Only 4 and a bit weeks left xxxx

EJnRHE xx

IRELAND 19 - 30 November 2011 (Dublin, Belfast, Derry, Galway, Dingle, Cork, Killarney, Kilkenny, Glenalough)

Dia Duit!!

We were welcomed to Ireland by the fabulous staff at Paddy's Palace in Dublin!!  We jumped on the six day all Ireland Paddywagon tour with 40 others and we ended up having the time of our lives!!  From sightseeing, to drinking cold beer, to drinking Guinness, to drinking games, to kissing rocks, to Irish dancing, and generally enjoying the good craic!! The Irish countryside and quaint towns were magnificant, some of the loveliest scenery in the world.

BELFAST
We started our tour in Drogheda, where we saw the preserved head of St Oliver Puckett (executed in 1681). We then went to Belfast, where we did a taxi tour through the city and we amazed by how much unrest there still is between the Catholics and Protestants, who are still separated by a 40 foot wall. They gave us the very confusing background on the civil war and explained that the fighting is nothing like it used to be. Later that night, after a lovely dinner, we went to a pub and got to know everyone better. Whilst wallking home, some of the girls got small rocks thrown at them, which was quite funny!

The taxi tours (Must do)

40 Foot wall diving the two sides.

Gate shuts every night at 6pm

Peace Wall

EJ and Kieran (Thanksgiving)


DERRY/LONDONDERRY
We cruised the beautiful North Coast and went to the Carrick-a-rede rode bridge which was spectacular. Then onto the footprints of the Celtic Giant's (Giant's Causeway) and Dunluce Castle. We spent the night in Derry, doing an afternoon walking tour along the city walls, seeing the Bogside District, the scene of Bloody Sunday Massacre in 1972 and having a massive night again!!  We enjoyed the Guiness, the traditional Irish dancing and enjoyed spending time with our new friends.

Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge

GALWAY
We drove through the enchanting Sligo, visiting the sacred grave of poet WB Yeats and followed the west coast along the rugged cliffs and the Atlantic Ocean. We visited Knock, Catholic Irelands vast pilgrimage site. The Irish party capital lived up to it's name, we had a fantastic night here! Our tour guide John was amazing, teaching us Irish songs (which he later regretted as we didn't stop singing them!) Another early morning and onto the Dingle Peninsula.

Lana and Hollie!

Our little famly lol..

Drunk...

More Drunk...


DINGLE
We drove further down the west coast to the Cliff's of Moher, it had our first rain here and boy was it windy! It was such a outstanding site and we are glad we had some typical Irish weather. We have had sunny warm days the whole trip :)  We crossed the River Shannon in historic Limerick and we stayed in a little town called Annascaul on to Dingle Peninsula. We had a karaoke night here and another delicious meal. We spent the next day in the little shipping town Dingle and visited Slea Head. We saw Sleeping Giant Island and the famous 3 sisters mountain range, enjoying a horse ride through Killarney National Park.

Cliffs of Moher!   SOOOOO Windy and cold....

Dingle, Our driver John he was great.

Dingle

Dingle Peninsula

KILLARNEY
We walked through the town and looked through the shops. Killarney is definately a lovely city and we'd come back for sure! We spent the night in Killarney, where we threw Lana a hen's party and drank the night away, dancing and having a craic! We were sent to bed at 5:30am by the hostel staff, who weren't impressed by our shananigans! Happy Days :)

CORK
We crossed the Cork and Kerry Mountains and went to Blarney Castle where we kissed the Blarney Stone. We are not sure if we have been gifted the gab but being dangled from a 300 feet battlement by a middle-aged Irish man was surely an offer we couldn't pass up haha. We crossed the beautiful Golden Vale, Ireland's finest agricultural land with its rolling fields and pastures fresh and on through the battle fields of 'Braveheart' to Dublin

Blarney Castle

Dave, Georgina and EJ

Just giving the stone a long wet kisssss.....

DUBLIN
We visited the Guinness Brewery and had our free Guinness and went back to our hostel. After a last dinner and teary goodbyes with our new friends, we say goodbye to amazing Ireland and hope to come back soon!!!

Free Guinness time.

Laura, Tess, Rachel and Georgie

Cara and Rhe - Jacket Buddies

Luke and Gazz


KILKENNY & GLENALOUGH
We did a day trip to Kilkenny and Glenalough with our new friend Alicia, it was really lovely to see the massive dams and quaint towns in the Irish countryside. We can now say we had a Kilkenny in Kilkenny and we couldn't be more stoked with our trip to Ireland!!

 True story..

 170 Tonne stone no one knows how it got there.

 Kilkenny

Slan Leat!!
Happy Days :)

EJnRHE xx