Sunday, March 30, 2008

Wicked Campers Ireland - Galway

The only task for Sunday was to get to Galway to meet up with Jimmy in preparation for St Patricks day on Monday, and without too many complications we managed to get that done.

We pulled into Galway, via the coastal route from Sligo, in the afternoon and found the Information centre in the middle of the town. Jimmy wandered down to the pub and led us around the corner to what would be our home for the next 2 days.

We met Sarah from Australia, and Anthony from Ireland, and quickly decided that we could do a lot of catching up at the pub.

We headed through Galway city and Jimmy gave us a quick run down of the place.

This is where JFK made a speach.
That is the longest line for an ATM in Ireland
This is Taafees our local, it does a good pint of guinness
This is Super Mac's, it has 2000 people trying to get in and 2000 people trying to get out every friday and saturday night
This is the Kings Head, it's where we go after Taafees, it does a good pint of Guinness
This is the Dew Drop, it's where we go after Taafees, it does a good pint of Guinness
This is the Front Door, it's where we go after Taafees, it does a good pint of Guinness
This is the Rosin Dub, it's where we go after Taafees, it does a good pint of Guinness

And so we went to Taafee's and had a pint of guinness, and it does indeed to a good pint. But was it a fluke? Did we happen to luck out and get a really good pint? I decided to put it to the test. We had another 3 pints of guinness and each of them were as good as the first. Time to test part two of the tour........... and so we did to each of the pubs listed above.

The night finished with everyone relatively HAMMERED!!!!

The next morning was St Patrick's Day.

Gary, Kita and Dani settle in for the evening

Jimmy Newman and I catch up for a few beers in Galway

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Wicked Campers Ireland

It's been a couple of days since we left miserable wet London for the cold rainy sky's of Belfast.

I flew out with Air France with Kita, and the plan was to meet Danielle at the airport while Gary, who had caught an earlier flight, would check in to the backpackers, find the closest pub and start quality testing the Guinness.

Before the plane could taxi out onto the runway I was punching out Z's after a very long week at work. Kita made a new friend and started her Irishination early knocking back a couple bottles of wine.

We all arrived safely and was soon sampling £2 Guinness at the local pub.

We didn't have too big a night the first night, as we were off at 9.45 the next morning with our man Dave who runs the caravan park where the Wicked Campers are kept.

Just a word to the wise for all you budding Ireland Wicked Campers, the round trip Dave provides from Belfast (your hostel or the airport), is well worth it. The buses that run out that way are slow and infrequent, and it's going to cost you at least 2 hours in each direction.

The four of us picked up the CLASH camper and got on the road without too much trouble, although about half way out to pick up the car I lost my co driver because she all of a sudden realised that she'd lost her drivers license......... but some how I'm not convinced.

We headed off and made our way up towards Portrush and a little town called Bushmills, you may have heard of their whisky.

Al Mennie was meeting us up in the carpark at Bushmills to drop off a 6' 8 Circle One board to go with Gary's board for the trip.

Our plan was to get down as far as Sligo on the first night but Ireland was playing England in the 6 nations so we stopped off in Londonderry for a couple of drinks and to watch the game. We probably should have just stopped in for the guinness as Ireland was given a bit of a touch up by England.

We pushed on towards Sligo and made a quick detour to Easkey's to check out the surf and have a quick toilet stop. There were two unfortunate circumstances here, first there were no waves and second the girls toilets were locked, and Danni really needed to pee.

Now I've seen some bad bathrooms before, but this was taking things a bit too far. It was like there was a Guinness festival on the day before and everyone used the same toilet without flushing. To her credit, she grinned and bared it and, although now mentally scarred by the experience, made it out alive and relieved.

We pulled up at Rosses Point outside the Sailing Club and bunked down for what was a VERY cold nights sleep. Danni was slightly stressed about having to sleep in the country side, and my cracks about an axe murderer on roof was going down like dolphin fin soup at a green peace party.

We did survive the night though and sat around the car park for coffees, kicked the footy and had a bite to eat for breakfast.
Our first night as a family

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Happy Birthday Mum

I'm on the road traveling through Ireland at the moment so I thought I'd shout out a quick Happy Birthday to my Mum for tomorrow (or now in Australia)

Hope you have a great day and sorry I can't be there to celebrate it with you. If I'm not back by next year you'll have to come out and celebrate it over here!

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Ireland Wicked Camper Adventures

On your marks......

Get Set..............

Go!


Well I haven't reached the go bit just yet, but I'm definitely set.

The 10 day adventure tour around Ireland kicks off in a little over 5 days, and promises to be "one of those trips".

If wireless in Ireland is anything like Mexico you can except a day by day, blow by blow, guinness by guinness account of the trip with plenty of funny stories, awkward photo's and award winning film clips.

Fingers crossed that a mammoth swell times itself sometime during that week as well so Al and Duncan get another shot at the Billabong XXL Ride of the Year award.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Hey Hey it's Saturday

I am just sitting in the living room at my place in London with my flat mates watching the Eurovision on a Saturday night.

We were likening the acts to those that used to appear on Red Faces on Hey Hey it's Saturday, which of course led us to searching you tube for some old clips.

I can't remember the show being this dirty, but then you'd miss a lot of dirty jokes when you're only 8 years old