Goodbye to our new " Irish" friends

The last day of our Vagabond Driftwood tour has finished, and we are in our home in Dublin for the next couple of days-Wellington House.

We started the day as we finished yesterday- just wondering at the beauty of a quiet Irish lake. Gougane Barra is a truly remarkable spot and we were very lucky to have the chance to spend the night there, and to enjoy it's peaceful tranquility in the evening and in the morning. This morning the water was still and dark and the wisps of clouds shrouded the mountains as a very light sprinkling of "dry rain" fell.

The Vagabond drivers were at their usual morning chores, ensuring that all was safe clean and comfortable ready for the day ahead. 

We feel we have a claim to both of these... Sean (on the left) drove us for our first two and a half days, and Henry (on the right) has ably carried the baton since then. They make a great tag team. Sean took over a Vagabond group tour after his required day off, hence he is looking after the Vagabond Landover for his new group, while Henry is doing our bus.


Blarney was about an hour up the road , so as the rain fell we motored up the highway to do what must be done. The Blarney castle is quite a large one, and it has quite narrow spiral staircases in places , with slippery stone steps (worn by the thousands of feet which have travelled over them in the last 200 years that travellers have been kissing the stone). The path to the castle from the entrance sported yarn bombed trees (very tastefully done). On the way out a harpist had been added to the decoration.

It was a very long way to the top-whether you wished to kiss the stone or just look at the views , so since we were there we both thought we might as well.....

view from  near the top.

Trevor ready to catch me if I slipped. He looks quite worried I think.

The gardens at the castle are amazing-with a special Poison Garden- complete with poisonous plants such as  marijuana,  poppy, rhubarb,  tea, wormwood, catnip, castor oil plant, and many others. 

I loved the textures of the wood spurge. 

Isn't this magical? I want one at my place.

We did a little reciprocal photo taking with some other tourists.

There is also a Rock Close which is definitely the home of fairies (and possibly at least one witch). The rock close also sported some excellent pom pom additions to the usual Arbour. 

Sadly there was nowhere near enough time to explore the entire grounds. You could easily spend a busy day there for your 13 Euro entry fee.

It was on to the next iconic Irish "must do "- a trip to the Rock of Cashel.

The town of Cashel has a huge  limestone rock which houses the remains of five different buildings built at five different times from 1101 AD onwards.  According to legend the rock originated about 20 miles away ( where there appears to be a bit missing from the mountain range) and was dropped by the devil here. St Patrick is said to have banished the Devil and to have converted the King of Munster on this spot-thus setting a trend towards Christianity from pagan beliefs.

 Due to the degradation of the buildings a huge conservation project is in progress. (Hence the scaffolding) and will be for the next eighteen months at least.

This spot was one of the main strengths of the Catholic Church for the region, so when Cromwell came over the seas, with his reforming ideas, he ransacked these buildings and set fire to the wooden roof of the cathedral where 1500 people were sheltering.  All were burned in this incident.

There are some remarkable old carving such as this one of the apostles

A very old cemetery overlooking rich green Irish farmland. If you weren't alive at a certain time, you do not qualify to be buried in this cemetery, so there will bev we refer,  if any,  further burials there. 

The cathedral was really interesting-the priests actually lived above it, and could walk through the walls to get around at their level. We similar arrangements in many of the old large cathedrals, but we're never allowed to get up there.

Can you see the doorways travelling through the bottom of the window areas? This is where the priests would have walked. 

We all piled into the bus again and headed for Dublin, gradually dropping off the various members of the group (we were last). The others are all heading homewards tomorrow,  so we feel very thankful to have another day and a bit to see a little more of Dublin, and then to be travelling onwards to start the next part of our adventures- a tour of Cornwall.