Ireland - Cork, Galway and surrounds

After a quiet and slightly disappointing weekend in Dublin, I headed down to Cork via a scenic coastal road. Although the scenery was impressive, it wasn't always visible due to the "atmospheric" weather.

Cork is the second largest city in Ireland and even has a population large enough to cause a traffic jam on the main street! The city is built around the Lee river which offers some nice views and although I was only there for four days, I met a few locals and really enjoyed the atmosphere and live music at the pubs around town. I will certainly consider returning to Cork later in the year.

I caught Paul Simon at "The Marquee" as part of the Cork Summer Festival. Despite being 69 years old and only about 4 feet tall, he sounded as good as ever. He mostly played older solo material and got through about half of Graceland (quite possibly my favourite album of all-time) before finishing with a very hopeful cover of "Here Comes The Sun". 

The sun didn't come. In fact at one point it had rained pretty much continuously for a week. Over the 'summer,' Budweiser were running a promotion called "The Ice-Cold Index" which offered discounted beer based on the weather. At 16 degrees you got 1 euro off, another at 18 degrees and by 20 degrees the beer was free. When I first read the conditions I thought they would put themselves out of business. Needless to say there was no free beer given away while I was in Ireland! Try and spot the country on the following rain map...

While I was in Galway I made the foolish decision to stop drinking Guinness for a few days and ended up in bed with the flu. As a result I didn't get to explore the city as much as I would have liked but from what I did see it seemed friendly and quite live-able, if slightly on the touristic side. 

Staying in hostels in Cork and Galway made me feel old. Although I met plenty of cool people they were usually a few years younger than me. It didn't help that Ryan whipped up a song especially for me entitled "Ode to my long-lost father".

I only had a couple of days left in Ireland when the sun finally reappeared and it was just in time for a road-trip around Galway and Mayo. My incredibly talented personal chauffeur, Kate, picked me up in Galway and we headed up to Westport, a scenic coastal town. From there we climbed Croagh Patrick, the highest mountain in the North-West and took in the scenery which was very different to the South.

The weather was perfect on my last full day in Ireland and I got some really great shots as we drove around the coastline of Achill Island. 

Despite the weather and the recession, Ireland still has the best pubs and the friendliest people that I've met anywhere in Europe. I'm excited about returning for an extended period later in the year!

Ireland - Hiking the Dingle Way

I arrived in Ireland and headed straight to Kilkenny to catch up with Kate, an intrepid hiker that I met last year in Nepal. We made it into town just in time to see Lisa Hannigan play a brilliant live set to a sold out crowd.  The venue was outstanding!

Despite the having just run three marathons in as many days earlier that week, Kate managed to talk me into joining her on "The Dingle Way" a 170km hike in South-Western Ireland.

The Dingle Way is more like an endurance pub-crawl than a traditional hike. Each day we walked for several hours along country roads, through fields and along long stretches of beach before stopping each evening at a different small town and heading out to explore the local pubs.

One tiny town had an impressive ratio of 7 pubs to 2 non-pub shops. Another 'pub' in Dingle was divided right down the middle - half pub, half fully functional hardware store. They seemed to be selling a lot more beer than hardware!

There was live music on offer in most towns with the band played traditional Irish songs and covers of modern pop/rock which usually sounded better than the originals. Although we didn't meet many other hikers, there were friendly locals everywhere. Their thick Kerry accents often made them completely incomprehensible but you didn't need to understand them to know that they were probably complaining about the weather. If this pony could talk, he would've complained about the weather too.

By Irish standards the weather was actually pretty good. The sun made a few brief appearances (I even got slightly sun-burnt) and although it often threatened to rain, we only got completely drenched once. We had walked about 25km before it started raining and we ended up having to walk another 15km while it bucketed down. In the process we passed through several deserted holiday-home ghost-towns, a legacy of the Celtic Tiger boom of the mid-2000s. We'd been walking for almost 12 hours when we finally stumbled, saturated and shivering into a guest-house but after a hot whiskey and several pints of Guinness, all was forgotten.

Although the terrain was generally quite flat, the scenery was amazingly green and impressively rugged with lots of free-stone walls and curious animals. A highlight for me was a 12km stretch along Ireland's longest beach with huge storm clouds building up behind us.

If you're ever in Ireland with a few days to spare, a willingness to walk long-distances and a taste for Guinness then I can highly recommend The Dingle Way. Thanks a million to Kate for a fantastic hike!

Adelaidians in Paris

Although my AirAsia flight didn't quite run on time and at one point they did run out of food, it had the overwhelming advantage of being cheap. As far as 13 hour plane trips go, my journey to Paris was painless enough.

Having already visited most of the city's touristic attractions I devoted this trip to drinking expensive wine and eating fancy French food. I enlisted the help of Chris, Alice, Dave and Sheree (friends from back home) and we headed out to La Pergolese, a Michelin Star restaurant near the Arc de Triomphe,  for a 9 course degustation. The highlights of the meal were a delicate shrimp salad and hearing the waiter ask "how would you like your pigeon cooked sir". Overall, the atmosphere and service were excellent while the food was good but not mind-blowing.

Many of the older buildings in Paris are built from rock that was carved out from quarries beneath the city which resulted in several thousand kilometers of tunnels 50 to 80 meters under the city streets. Although "The Catacombs" are mostly off-limits to the public there are plenty of stories of people sneaking into them and sometimes not coming back. In the late 18th century a section of The Catacombs was converted into a giant ossuary and later opened up as a tourist attraction. Its a creepy place but well worth a visit!

On the road again... Adelaide ---> Melbourne ---> KL

2011 has already been a pretty interesting year for me. I spent the first few months in Sydney, chasing after a girl. Staying in Manly was fantastic (see photo below!) but in the end she got away so I decided to pack my bags, grab a one-way ticket to Europe and let the chips fall where they may.

My immediate plans involve hiking, biking and backpacking in Ireland, Germany and Czech Republic. Although my long-term plans are still pretty vague, I'm going get an apartment in Berlin for a month (from mid-July) and then try to do the same somewhere in Ireland and see which I like better.

Despite being away from Adelaide often over the past few years this trip feels somehow different. Maybe the uncertainty of not knowing when I'll be back is playing a part or maybe I'm just getting old, but I feel a lot more sentimental about leaving my hometown, friends and family than I expected. Despite what all the people say, Adelaide really is a lovely town. You should really check it out some time!

My AirAsia flight departed from Melbourne so I stopped over there for a couple of nights, checked that Hermie was still alive and received a last minute pep-talk from TheGasman and friends. The only problem with eating out in Melbourne is that it sets the bar unrealistically high - other cities' restaurants just can't compete.

Going from Melbourne winter to Kuala Lumpur, where every day is 32 degrees and 100% humidity, wasn't easy. When I walked into my hostel the guy at the desk asked me if it was raining outside - fortunately he never got close enough to smell me.

I've spent quite a bit of time in KL over the past couple years and it feels a bit like a home away from home for me now. This trip I ate plenty of delicious food, met some cool people and had a couple of great nights out - the perfect start to my trip.

While wandering around the Chinatown markets with some crazy Norwegians (is there any other kind?) I was able show off my legendary bartering skills. I showed some interest in a flat-cap and initially the price was set at RM35 (A$10). I offered RM10, walked away at RM12 then turned around to reconsider. On closer inspection I found that the cap was slightly damaged and didn't quite fit properly. The price was reduced to RM8 then RM5 before the seller finally give up and offered to give cap to me for nothing. I politely decined. :)