The Arrowgroup

Saturday Travelling to Ireland

So far so good, but the travel arrangements went downhill from there: firstly, we were planning on camping on the West cost, so why didn't we fly to Shannon instead of Dublin? Who knows. We now had the leisure of a 199-mile trip across Ireland in which to rue this foolish decision. Still, our hire vehicle was fast and comfortable. Don't be silly - we'd spent all our cash on the airfare (to the wrong airport) and now had to economise. It was a Renault Scenic and we barely fitted in.

By 10:00 we where heading westwards out of Dublin on the N7. The Renault was struggling with five lardasses on board, and could barely accelerate. Chris finally coaxed us up to 81 MPH when, in true Basil Fawlty style, we got pulled over by the Garda for speeding. My how we laughed. It took us another hour to get back up to 70 mph.

Lunch was in a small town called Adair (at Stuarts insistence, nobody knows why..), and thereafter it was Limerick and finally Flesk Muckross campsite just outside Killarney. Situated on the verge of the Killarney National Park it looked great on the photo's, but disappointing in real life. Too family-orientated and regimented for our anarchic tastes, but we where stuck with it for the moment so up went the tents.

Killarney

We sauntered into Killarney in the evening for the usual top up of food and ale. The town itself was pleasant with Macgillycuddy's Reeks forming a rugged mountainous backdrop but it was very definitely a tourist trap. You could hear Americans everywhere with their loud 'hey I wanna tell ya somethin' and 'gee Hank ain't that just great!' monologues. It was also hard to find a decent pub to be honest-that is, one that doesn't have dance music blaring out of it and serving expensive watery ale. We're old crusties now.

We eventually did find a pub called Jack Sports with traditional Irish music playing till late on. It was a bit 'Sports TV, spit, and sawdust', but a vast improvement on the generic trendy pubs that constituted the rest of Killarney, so it became our regular. Most of us where too tired to make a proper night of it, but Chris and Mark stayed behind to savour the craic until around 0200, and very good it was apparently.

The Dingle Peninsula

It was decided that we should go to the westernmost part of Ireland and so we had Dunmore Head on the Dingle peninsula in our sights on a glorious sunny morning.It took us about an hour and twenty minutes to get there from Killarney but it was worth it. We had snaked our way along the peninsula through Dingle itself and along the narrow roads past the Inch spit to our destination. The scenery and views were quite simply stunning.

The sea was crystal clear and so, donning our wetsuits the Arrowgroup played at being seals. The beaches were clean and the sand was excellent.We couldn't walk to the tip of Dunmore Head as the fear of spreading foot-and-mouth disease meant the path was closed. Still, we had gone further west an ever before.After our period of frivolities we made recourse to Dingle for a bite to eat, passing rugged hilly terrain on the way. It was most unspoilt and photogenic.

We reached Dingle in the middle of the afternoon. A look around Dingle itself then it was meal time. A carefully selected pub was chosen where we imbibed both food and drink to our hearts content before heading back to Killarney. A most interesting day's entertainment! This was to be our last night in Killarney. The pulchritude of the campsite combined with the magnitude of the distances on our original itinerary forced a change of plan. We were going to bypass the Ring of Kerry and drive down to the Beara peninsula, with a final night somewhere closer to Dublin.

Dursey Island

Ah. Dursey Island. What can there be to say about this rocky outpost on the edge of civilization? A fair bit as it happens.The drive was tortuous. The distances where long and the roads where laughable. (one had grass growing in the middle). Nic's attempts to automate navigation had resulted in the car being a tangle of cables and laptop computers, none of which worked properly. Competition for the cigar-lighter attachment was fierce with five mobile phones, a GPS and a laptop vying for charge time. It was only on the last day that we discovered that the Renault had TWO cigar lighter attachments!

We arrived to find that the only sensible way to cross over to the island is by a cable car that links it to the mainland. The only thing was that it only runs at certain times of the day. Well after the drive over it was a bit of a disappointment as the next trip was not for a couple of hours. We found solace though in the café perched nearby and later indulged in some rock climbing at the water's edge.

Eventually after a further wait of half an hour we climbed into what can only be described as a shed on wires-for that's what it was. Over at the other side we wandered about for a bit. Stuart complained and moaned quite a lot at this point fearing we would get stranded there for another 2 hours which to be honest none of us fancied. After queuing for a place we then took the shed back over and set off for a campsite on the south coast.

Glengariff

It was not planned to go to Glengariff in particular; we were looking for a campsite on the south coast of Ireland nearer to our intended destination of Waterford. After consulting the good book we found a charming place about 2km outside the village. The only thing spoiling the campsite was a very large number of gnats and mosquitoes around the tents in the evening. Most inconvenient...

A brisk walk into Glengariff later and it was a case of the usual food and ale for the evening. A great pub was found with some live music, and we stayed there the whole evening, supping plenty of Guinness and the Arrow Group requesting well known numbers from the guitarist.

The walk back was interesting. It's an odd feeling..with no street lights to guide the way home and only the moonlight casting it's shadow over the nearby Caha Mountains it was quite eerie. One of the highlights as we made our way back was the sighting of the International Space Station passing overhead. Excellent.

Tramore

The next day we left the gnats behind and headed off along the coast towards Tramore, passing Cork on the way. Again it took some time to travel there, reaching the town at lunchtime. We would compare Tramore to Skegness or Southport. It had the usual arcades, fairs and promenade of a small seaside resort.

Again we found a suitable place to camp at a place called Newtown Cove. There was a walk on the beach and a look around before we headed back to the campsite. Wanting to make most of our wetsuits we then walked down to the rocks a short distance from camp and sampled the cold waters thereto.

Good fun was had, and with a lot of energy being expended we soon got hungry. A quick shower later, we headed back into Tramore for a bite to eat. Very nice it was too. In the evening we returned to the campsite and descended upon a pub called The Rockett's a short distance from the campsite, and stayed there for the duration of the evening. Interesting shortcut route back to the campsite on the way back-through a wall of nettles and mud. Excellent...

Jerpoint Abbey and Home

New day, new destination-home! It was all over, but not before we had breakfast at the Rising Sun in Mullinavat and paid a visit to Jerpoint Abbey near Thomastown on the way to Dublin. We needn't have bothered really. Whilst it was quite pleasant it wasn't quite excitement personified. Not Arrow material.Still, we took some nice shots of the Abbey and grounds and milled around in the finest Arrow tradition, plenty of moaning to be had too. IR£2 to get in and look at a load of old stones...Good Grief!

Onwards and upward, we got to Dublin in plenty of time for our flight. Had a look round the place too. In the rain. There were so many people there as well as us. Where did they all come from? Saw O'Connell Bridge, the Dial, Trinity college etc. Bought the souvenir tat. Well some of us did. We were quite surprised at how nice Dublin is really, we didn't quite expect it to be so nice. The good burghers of that city have made large improvements to good effect.We got to the airport quite early after battling through the Dublin rush hour, we had quite a wait for the flight back after dropping the car off.

Amusement was to be had though with the final filming of our experiences of the holiday in the departure lounge.So as we jetted off into the deep red sky of the evening, watching the dappled rays of the dying sun reflecting on the cold Irish Sea we contemplated our trip. It was enjoyable camping once again after a break of a few years but we missed the nice beds and convenience of a house or chalet.. So we look forward to our next trip, in 2002, to be in Deal, Kent.

When we got back we were alarmed to discover that two of our videotapes we shot were missing. Calls made to all points on our route back from Tramore were made to no avail. So there won't be a video this year, for the first time. We are still smarting over the loss. A hard lesson in life learned unfortunately.