Cong 29-8-2007

We are halfway our horse and wagon trip now and it is absolutely fabulous. A very nice and quit tour with only about 10 km per day being towed by our great horse "Fionn". Everything is working out fine and we learned pretty quick how to manage the horse and deal with the traffic on the roads. We only travel about 3 hours per day giving us all afternoons off for walking, fishing, cycling and taking photo's. Right now we are in the village of Cong where we visited one of Irelands most beautifull castles wich is actually turned into a hotel right now. We had to take a taxi from our camp but it was only 15 km away from there. We will finish this week before going down South towards Kerry for a couple of days. We hope you are all doing well.

Leslie & Frans

The beauty of the Glens

This morning it drizzled a bit but from about 10 the sun appeared and made the rest of the day. We spent the day driving around in the North-East corner of Norhern island and in particular around the Antrim Glens. Just "WOW" is possobly the only thing I can write about that. A beautiful coastline with green fields, steep cliffs, psychedylic sheep (sheep of many colors) and the right thee-houses at the right spot. At the end of the day we enjoyed a good dinner in the Smugglars Inn after which we went to the giant Causeway for a last visit hoping that we could catch some kind of a sunset. Unfortionately just before that time the clouds came in so I guess there is a reason to come back here.

Bushmills-Giant Causeway 23-8-2007

Today was "excursion day". After our wake up in the morning we went to the so-called "Giant Causeway" along the Northern Irish coastline. The coastline here is owned by the National Trust and is also a Unesco World heritage site. The main attraction are the millions of pentagon shapes bassalt rocks. The storie goes that this causeway of bassalt rocks was built by a giant who wanted to walk from Ireland to Scotland to fight his competitor giant there. After he saw that the Scottish giant was a real big guy he run back to Ireland and disguised himself as the baby of the Irish giant. When the Scottish giant came over, he saw the bay and immagined how big his father would be. So in big fear he went back to Scotland braking down the causeway. Only the beginning (here in Northern Ireland) and the end (on the Island of Staffa in Scotland) can still be seen! I thought that was a good story. We hike around the coastline for more than 3 hours before commencing towards a famous rope bridge connecting the mainland with a small rocky island and swinging about 30 meters above the ocean. At the end of the day we went to the Bushmills Wiskey destillary for a tour and of course some tasting and last but not least buying the stuff as well. Our day ended on the campsite with a good self cooked dinner. The weather was very cooperative today. Only clouds, no rain.

Belfast 22-8-2007

With the most beutiful weather we left Dublin in the early morning to make our route go North. Around the border with Northern Island the sun disappeared a bit for making place for some low clouds. No rain though! We went into the city of Belfast to find our way (thank you navigator "Tom-Tom Jane") towards False Street and Swankhill Road being the frontline of the Northern Irish war between the Catholics and the Protestants for many years. Reason for us to come here was to take photo's of the very impressive murals that can be found everywhere on the side of the old houses. Luckely the tension is take away a lot since the Godd Friday agreements but this area has still an atmosphere of that it does not need a lot to explode again. We did feel not unsafe here though and it is also very clear that the government tries to upgrade the poor area as much as possible. From Belfast it was only a little bit over an hour North to end on a most beautiful campsite close to the town of Bushmill and very close to the Giant Causeway that is concidered one of Irelands nature beauties. Anyway, right now it is not sunny but there is a little wind and no rain (yet). We are gonne make dinner and tomorrow we will start exploring this area. We are actually only 300 yards from an whiskey destillary so in case of emergency......! We keep you posted.

Leslie and Frans

Dublin 20-8-2007

Hi everybody,

We made it into Dublin, Irel;and after 2 days of travelling from the Netherlands. So far we had kind of rainy days but evey last tow evenings it cleared out and right now we are walking in the Temple Bar area enjoying the late evening sunshine. We found a campsiote about 15 km out of Dublin that connects with the city centre by bus. Anyhow we hope to stay here the next 2 days and than move North towards Belfast in Northern Ireland.

We hope to hear from you all

Stay happy, healthy and .....in touch

Love

leslie and frans