Day 8 - Still in Killarney- Ring of Kerry trip

Katie and Kyra in the toilet - yes it is magnificent

 All right Day 8 the Ring of Kerry tour for the day. So off we go with Mark and learn lots more  fabulous fun facts.
Unfortunately when we got to the first Waterfall Kyra, Katie and I need to go to the toilets and the public ones were closed. So the others got of and walked to the waterfall - whilst Mark drove us to the pub. Mark said we better get a picture of the toilet as a scenic view- and we did.

Photo at the monastery it was so beautiful with all the Autumn leaves and the ruins- just had to share with you all.

Hi all- have run into a small technical problem which we are trying to amend- my cord for connecting to the computer has lose wires. Currently using Alison's card reader but I have run our of time and not able to upload her photos of the day or the last two days. The Internet place not open till Monday will do then.
till then
Miss you from here
Karen & Alison

Day 7- in Killarney for Halloween

Hi all,
Finally in a place where it doesn't cost the earth and we have more than five minutes- so able to sit through slow process of download times- Crap Alison just told me I only have 45 minutes till they shut. So I am going to try and complete all the tour photos of Ireland (just for you Kyra) and then do the Scotland ones on Monday.
So one of the many things that has come up for the tour is - FOOD ENVY (when you like what others have ordered better than what you have) so I am doing a separate pictures of the great food we had in the last few days hopefully today.

1st night in Killarney- Halloween. These fab outfits were purchased with only 2 hours of shopping time available. Now for those of you who are not up on your Irish history (not like our group cause Mark knew everything and quizzed us each morning on what we learnt the day before). So as a surprise we all dressed up as legends, fables and movie characters that we had learnt about over the last 7 days.

Bottom Renee is a Banshee, Karen - Grace O'Malley Pirate Queen, Kyra- Fairy who sleeps with men and has Leprechaun's as children, Katie- Headless horse man, Rachel- St Bridget, Lyndon-the ghost of a leprechaun (no suits left), Freddie- son of the Pirate Queen, Alison- Mary Kate from The Quiet Man (aren't you proud dad)

The Pirate Queen and the Fairy plotting in the pub.

So that is just a small amount of the photos from Halloween. To let you know how pretty we all looked on the night.

Miss you from here.
Karen & Alison

We are in Scotland

Hi All,
 I have 4 days more of the tour photos to add. But will not do now as this place also charges to use a usb. Needless to say we had a great time and all our new friends are awesome.
We have come to Scotland - and Freddie has also come for the weekend before he goes back to work. Katie and Lydon will be here later today, but we will have headed off I think to the highlands. However they will be here for a week so will probably catch them Mon/ Tues on our way back to Edinburgh.
Edinburgh is an amazing looking city and wish we were spending  more time here to get to know it. For those of you who are themselves or have children into it, we ate at the cafe last night were JK Rowlings wrote the first Harry Potter book- the Elephant Cafe. The food was beautiful- have photos to follow. Also they collect elephants, Freddie got the Elephant chair (wood chair carve as an Elephant)- which was a favourite for a little girl who kept running up to see the chair.

Well just a quick update today- hopefully find an Internet cafe tomorrow that is cheaper to upload the photos till them
Miss you from here
Karen & Alison

Photos of Day six on Tour on our way to Kilaney

Hi all,
Well dedication or what - firstly we remember and logged into Alison's betting account to bet on the Melbourne cup late yesterday afternoon our time. After working out the time difference we realised it would be 4am here when the race would happening. We didn't make any plans to be awake and watch it as we are leaving at 9am. However we did end up being close as we went out to see Pete Fagan preform last night- expecting him to start at 9.30pm- no like most of the live music it started later - much later midnight.

So being that we wanted to see him as Mark (our guide) had been yabbering on all day about how great Pete was, we walked back to the O'Donoghue's bar (cause their music was already happening) and ordered cider. The bar is attached to a posh hotel- yah us. And it was over loaded with (about 15) American tourists. But we also meet a lovely couple from Parkes (Australia) over for their daughters wedding in London. They were impressed that both Alison and I had been to Parkes and seen the movie "The Dish'.
Photos will come later.

Now on to the photo's I couldn't upload yesterday- I have got up at 6am so have only had 3 hours sleep so I could retry- so I hope you enjoy them. Also checked the race results- it started late due to rain and I didn't back the winner- so sad.

Mark (our Guide) feeding donkeys an apple. Heather thought you would like to see Irish Donkeys- do you want me to bring one home for you (or two).

How is this for a church- all hand built

This is Natalie (her first close up appearance on our blog) this was for her Nana to show that she went to church whilst in Ireland (she is inside the tiny church in the above photo) Good on you Natalie. 

Us all walking along the lakes edge at Dingle Harbour in the hope of seeing Fungi the Dolphin- yes a Dolphin. Apparently he has been hanging around here for 25 years all by him self. Whilst we saw him he was way across the lake and not close enough to get a photo- check out the following link for a close up. I was not popular when I mentioned life expectancies- taboo subject as the town thrives on the tourism of one dolphin called Fungi- mmm the name read the link for that story.

http://www.dingle-region.com/fungi.htm

Pretty lake at Dingle Fungi is in there some where (like Nessie)

Alison walking on the edge at lake in Dingle- look at the pretty blue sky

When we got to Killanery we went on a Horse and cart ride through Killarney National Park- best shot I could do on a moving cart sitting very close but opposite Alison, who is sitting next to Renee. The park is beautiful check out the link below for great scenery shots.

http://www.killarneynationalpark.ie/



A photo in the park whilst on the cart. Love this photo how pretty are all the autumn colours. Also 2 interesting facts in one part of the park they have cut down a large group of trees that are not native to Ireland and are replanting native trees. Next one is that one of the trees native to Ireland is used for breast cancer treatment- something in it is used in the medication- how great is that.


So I think I need to apologise as I think I spelt Killarney wrong in the last post - with only one L. Sorry about that peoples. Well it is now 8.20am and I have been at this one post for an hour and half with the down loads taking most on the time. Heading off now- we need to convince Mark to give us 15 minutes to get to a shop called Serendipity to look at the jewellery- here is hoping he says yes.
Miss you from here
Karen and Alison

Day Seven- more on the way to Kilarney and Kilarney nite life

Hi all,
Well I have just spent 10 minutes trying to upload more of our photos from yesterday, last night and today. I have lost patience in the process. So I will download at a internet cafe when I can.

Just quickly we are in Kilarney, here last night and today. The rain has set back in and it was a wet traveling day
SOOOO Dad this is the O'Donoghue castle in Kilarney- is this the one that should have been our home???? This is called Ross castle and was the last strong hold against Cromwell but it was leased out at the time- think I got that right. Check it out on-  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Bunrattybig.jpg 
 If not do you know where it was????



O'Donoghue's Castle in Kilarney

So we have great photos which I hope to up load on the next blog of what we have done and seen. Also it was Halloween last night so we did the fancy dress- and being as clever as we are we have dressed up as all things that our Guide Mark has told us about. So legends, myths and movies (yes the Quiet Man again) of Ireland. He was well surprised, see a few drinks the night before and we have the best idea- and we only had 2 hours to get the costumes together. At this point it would have been great to go through sister Kate's fancy dress shop- oh well we did alright with what we got.
Miss you from here
Alison and Karen

A Hairy bathroom! With snores...

Well it's the start of another day and we've had a few issues over night... Our dorm room was shared with some people from another group the first issue of snoring resulted in Karen getting up and updating the blogg for three and a half hours, as the morning arrived we awoke to the sound of hair being brushed.... in the stillness of the room this was very very loud loud there are now many of my room mates sitting around with crossed leggs because they deemed the bathroom was unusable when we eventually got up - it was covered in hair.

The bus is being loaded, I'll have to finish my post and uploaded some of my photo's in the comming days - yes I've been very slack in comparision to Karen's efforts with the blogg - but I've been enjoying not needing to be in front of a computer as often as when I'm at home.

Photo's and more soon I promise
Alison