It was an early rise for the Paddywagon that was departing at 8am, but I was so excited I didn't notice. Barry or Bazza as the Aussies called him was our bus driver for the three days; he's from Cork and is a typical Irish guy, funny! He introduced himself and his pet sheep, Seamus who is a toy, and we were instructed to make sure we took him out and got photos with him. It was a mixed bag of people on the bus, but it was mainly full of Australians, so when Barry called out "who's from Australia?" there was a great big cheer, then he asked "and who's from New Zealand?" and I yelled out thinking I'd have some support, but no, it was just me, the one and only kiwi on a bus mainly full of Aussies... There was a mixed bunch of people though; we had a South African guy, a couple of girls from Denmark and Germany, a few from America and a Canadian.
The first main destination for our Paddywagon bus was Galway but not before we went off the beaten track and Barry took the massive bus through narrow windy roads to show us some real Irish country side. Our first Main stop was Cong, where the film The Quiet Man was mostly filmed. It is a quaint little town in Country Mayo and has two Loughs (which means Lake) either side with a river running through the town and joining the two loughs. So lunch and a nice walk around the old Cong Abbey was a lovely way to spend the first stop in Ireland, and already I could tell this would be a super trip, I was seeing amazing country side and meeting some great people.
Lough Corrib, the largest lake in the Republic of Ireland and the second largest lake in Ireland, was stop number two for the first day of the tour. It was only a 15 minute stop but was lovely to get out and get a good look at some beautiful views. Then we were onto Killary, we made it there after a few more narrow windy roads, and I was starting to feel like I was back in New Zealand, though NZ doesn't have the ruined churches and castles. Killary is where the film The Field was made, though I have not seen this movie, nor had I seen the one that was filmed in Cong, but it was still pretty so I got some good pictures. Killary also has a sheep and wool museum, which I found rather funny so I took a photo of that as well. After Killary we drove past a large amount of bog land, I did keep my eyes peeled for a bog 'man', but I think that they can only be found in the British Museum. Mid afternoon and we had arrived at Kylemore Abbey, it's so pretty there! A great castle-like abbey that over looks a small lake surrounded by gardens, by now I'm really starting to fall in love with Ireland.
We drove past a few more bogs and ended up in a tiny town called Connemara, we were driving along when Barry told us we had to get out and check out what the statue of the giant meant, as every tour group he tells don't believe him, we all looked a bit confused wondering what could it be that we wouldn't believe Barry? So out we hoped and walked over to the giant where underneath him it said "This is Connemara (Con son of the sea), built in 1999, for no apparent reason". Behind the giant was a monument and on this monument it said "On this site in 1897 nothing happened", oh don't you just love the Irish? I don't think you'd find anything else like that anywhere in the world!
Galway Girl soon became the song for the trip and it all started with Barry singing it for us, of course we all sung along in the parts we knew to help him out, we must have looked mad all singing in this great big bus. So after the singing of Galway girl we, well Barry with our permission picked up a hitchhiker, who was so drunk he stunk the bus out with the smell of alcohol, but it was a bit of a laugh to see the look on Barry's face when he realised he'd invited a drunken/singing/smelly hitchhiker onto his bus, we were all thoroughly amused. After getting the hitchhiker out of the bus as soon as Barry could, we were in Galway.
Galway is amazing, the atmosphere as soon as you arrive just lets you know that this is a place full of history and character and Galway soon became one of my favourite places I have been and definitely my favourite place in Ireland. We quickly got settled into our backpackers then went out to have a walk around. Galway is small so we pretty much managed to see most of it in about an hour. Barry was still a bit of a tour guide here, and he took us to a place were we all got a good meal then we all headed onto a typical Irish pub. Now I always thought I knew what and Irish pub was like, after dancing for so many years and spending close to every St Patricks Day of my life in one, I really truly thought I had the Irish pub scene down pat, but no, I was far off. I soon found out the Irish pubs in Ireland are the real deal, they have the band, the beer, the music, the laughter, the everything, no pub will ever be the same, and these are so much fun! We'd spent a good part of our night here and I'd managed to drink half a pint of Guinness, which I don't think is too bad considering I don't even like the stuff, but because of where I was I thought I'd get into the spirit of things. The night had potential to be a big night out, but since we all had to be up early to get on the bus, we thought we'd be sensible and head back at a semi reasonable hour. Though it was only a Monday night, it was obvious that Galway would be a big night out any day of the week.
Paddywagon day two and we were destined for the tiny town of Annascaul on the south west coast of Ireland, it was also another day of seeing amazing places and some beautiful Irish countryside. We stopped at Dunguaire Castle, Corcomroe Abbey, then we stopped at The Burren which is this rocky land, full of limestone which goes for miles and miles and in the middle of it all is Poulnabrone Portal Tomb, which is pretty much two massive rocks with one rock placed on the top, and just like Stonehenge you wonder 'did they do it?'. Then it was onto the Cliffs of Moher, which are just stunning and it was so lovely to walk around the edge of them, though I can't say I liked the very sharp drop that was right there, but it was a great stop and a wonderful experience to walk around this area. Though the Cliffs of Moher has a serious bug problem which needs to be dealt with, these small black flying insets were everywhere and I mean everywhere! You couldn't open your mouth without one deciding to investigate, and by the time we made it back to the bus, the little creepy crawlies where in our hair and our clothes, it was insane.
Day two was a pretty intense day, we'd all seen a lot and we're all feeling rather tired, but we'd arrived at our backpackers for our last night of the trip and we were all going to make it a good night. The backpackers was well set up for a very small town, with its very own pub called The Randy Leprechaun, so we had some dinner here then tried out a few Irish drinks and I'm not talking about Guinness or Jameson, I'm talking about Car Bombs and Green Frogs. What are those I hear you ask, well a Car Bomb has the same concept as a Jager Bomb, but instead of Jager and Redbull it's Baileys and Stout (like Guinness) and Irish whiskey, sound absolutely awful, but they are in fact rather nice. A Green Frog is blue Wicked, Smirnoff red and an orange Bacardi Breezer, and this makes for a drink that is far too tasty and extremely easy to drink. So after sampling a few of these drinks we were onto karaoke for the evening and a lot of laughing and carrying on!
Paggywagon day three, the last day of the tour had come around super fast and I was not ready for it to end, I was having far too much fun, but there was still a long plentiful day ahead with lots of places to go and see. Killarney was our first stop and we would start here with a lovely horse and cart ride through killarney National Park. The driver of our horse and cart was great, he was telling us stories about Leprechauns and where we could find them, telling us that the troth over in the field was a leprechauns Olympic swimming pool and the small concrete square sticking up in the road was a leprechauns gravestone. He even told us that "if you drink a good few pints of Guinness you can see leprechauns and that if you drink too much Guinness you may even fall over one", this I found extremely funny. After the horse and cart ride, we thought we'd head off to a pub to find an Irish Coffee, since none of us had tried one and we'd thought it was a good way to start the last day of the tour. Finding an Irish Coffee in Ireland was harder than we expected, but that was mainly due to the fact that it was only 10am and most pubs were shut, believe it or not! My first Irish Coffee was amazing and I think I'll most likely be having a few more of them in the future because they are super yum. The next stop after Killarney was Blarney where we would see Blarney Castle and Kiss the Blarney stone. Now kissing the Blarney Stone isn't the most comfortable of situations, I'm not scared of heights, but I don't particularly like them and to kiss this stone you have to go up to the top of the Blarney Castle where then you hang backwards over the edge with someone hanging onto you, you then move over the edge more and hang down more it's then that you kiss this stone and are pulled back up by the person hanging onto you. A very interesting experience indeed, but very worth it as now I can say I've kissed the Blarney Stone I am now meant to have lots of good luck; we'll see how long the good luck will last.
On our way back to Dublin now and we made one last stop at The Rock of Dunamase, a very ruined old castle surrounded by green fields that seemed to go on forever. It was so peaceful and beautiful here that I don't think the last stop on the tour would've been any better than this. Here is what you really imagine Ireland to be like, it was so scenic. The castle was built in the 12th Century and there is very little of it left now, that Barry said to make the most of it as he doesn't think it'll be much longer before it becomes nothing but a few rocks in the ground. Ireland must have been so amazing hundreds of years ago.
The tour ended and I said my goodbye's to my new friends, I'd had so much fun the past three days, but I was ready for bed. Anyone that ever goes to Ireland I'd recommend you do a Paddywagon Tour, they are a lot of fun and you see so much that's off the beaten track you really get a chance to see Ireland as it is. Ireland was everything I imagined it to be and so far stands as the best country I've seen so far, it lived up to all my expectations and more.
I love Ireland!
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