Ireland - it's raining again.

So now we are in Ireland. The first morning I went for a walk to the beach, very like a NZ beach – lovely, no development or deck chairs and lots of sand – although make that a NZ beach in winter, the Irish mist made it a bit hard to view much through my glasses. Gus stayed in camp because we had free internet and he decided to listen to the test (NZ/Aussie) instead – I think he’s been suffering withdrawals from lack of sport to listen to/watch. On my walk I’m sure I also discovered the door to the secret garden!

Today we drove to New Ross and had a tour of the replica ‘famine ship’ The Dunbrody. It’s an exact replica of a ship that sailed from here to New York and Quebec on a regular basis. It was originally just a freight ship but when the famine came and people were desperate; they crudely converted it with rows of bunks. Then for the return journey they just ripped the bunks out and it was a cargo ship again. There were about 160 people on board but sometimes up to 320; the ship was only about 160 feet long and the steerage area was only about 2/3 of that. Each family had one bunk – about the size of a double bed with up to six people living in it for 4-6 weeks. They were only allowed on deck for ½ an hour a day, to cook their food and empty their buckets (toilets).

The first class passengers and crew were a bit better off, with cabins and allowed on deck whenever they chose, as well as much better food. If there was a storm the hatches were bolted and the steerage passengers could be shut down below for up to a week – no way to cook their food or empty buckets. They couldn’t wash clothes except in sea water and had very little food.

This basket was the allowance of a family for a week, some brought extra food with them but not all could afford to. Often their fare was paid by the landowner to get them off his land so he could graze sheep, much less trouble. An average of 50% died on the way to America.

Tonight we’re staying at Tramore. We walked down to the beach (in our jackets) and were amazed to see lots of people swimming – although we did notice that a majority were wearing wetsuits. The beach reminded us almost of Malta with the rocks that people were jumping off into the water – although here they’ve manmade some as the natural ones are pretty rough – and the temperature is a tad different!

We woke up to a beautiful sunny day, so really enjoyed the extremely scenic drive from Annestown to Bunmahon. We had to keep stopping every few kms to wander round and photograph the pretty coves. I asked some locals if the weather is usually like this and they laughed and said “No, today’s our summer so enjoy it!” The summer lasted till lunchtime - ah well.

We came around a corner near Bunmahon and saw some ruins – Gus immediately said he thought he recognised them from a movie he’d seen. I was a bit doubtful... Anyway it turned out he was right – the movie was “The McKenzie Break”. It was an old copper mine and in the movie a Bedford truck was pushed into the big hole behind it and immediately burst into flames – apparently the poor old truck is still there. A group of Russians were trying to escape from Ireland but what they were doing here and why they were trying to escape he can’t remember.

Looking at my travel folder this morning I realised too, that we are near the ancestral Smyth home – my mother’s grandfather emigrated from this area as an 18 year old and was shipwrecked off the Kapiti Coast in NZ. I hope he didn’t travel steerage! It was probably a steam ship by then anyway? Not sure on this... Anyway he came from a little village called Ballindangin, SW of Mitchelstown in County Cork. I had seen a photograph of the house but didn’t really know where to find it. I talked to an elderly man who was very interested that we were from NZ and had an ancestor from around here but he didn’t know the house. He said “Ah well, I suppose it would’ve been a while ago now” (but with a lovely Irish accent).

While we were in the area we went and saw the Mitchelstown Cave (no photos allowed again,damn, how's a girl supposed to keep a blog!). The cave was discovered in 1833 – I can remember this date because the young woman guiding us called it 18 tirty tree, made me smile (on the inside) every time. They’ve been taking guided tours since that time but people used to have to climb down a wooden ladder and squeeze through small gaps and use torches (in the early days candles) to navigate. Thankfully we’re far too soft for that now and they’ve put in concrete steps and electric lighting. It was a great cave, lots of stalactites and stalagmites and very natural – not too touristy. In the third chamber they have a stage where they regularly have concert singers perform.

On our travels today we also went through a corner of the County of Tipperary (not Tipperar contrary to what it says here) but we managed to refrain from breaking into song, it didn’t even seem a Long Way – ha ha. FYI of any youngsters reading this, there's a very old song called ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’.

We intended to stop in Cork City but couldn’t find any parking for the Enterprise – all the carparks we saw were in buildings and too low for us. So we carried on to Glengarriff and started on the Ring of Beara (a circuit of a peninsular). We stayed in a camping ground lined with cabbage trees! In the distance in this photo is Bear Island, you can get a ferry to it – we didn’t, it looked pretty barren.

The area we stayed in seems to be a bit of a boat graveyard, we saw several in various stages of decay. Lovely bays though as you can see.

We found another ring of standing stones - I was brave enough to touch the big stone for those of you who've read Diana Gabaldon, there was no humming and the stone was cold, but there was a crack of thunder just as I touched it - made me jump and Gus shake his head at my madness.

The west coast of the peninsula, in particular, was very barren and stark but also had a beautiful, craggy coastline.

Right at the end of the peninsula is a gondola that goes back and forth all day and is the main transport to Dursey Island – apparently it’s the only gondola in the world that goes to an island. It was very windy and pretty cold there so we decided not to visit that island either...

We also travelled around the Ring of Kerry (over 2 days) – this has a better road so is far more popular especially with the coaches but we didn’t think it was as spectacular as the Beara peninsula but still some great views. We went out for my birthday dinner to a restaurant on the beach. By the way thank you for all the birthday wishes and even poems from my work colleagues. Gus gave me flowers - well a clump of Ragwort complete with roots attached... The restaurant advertised seafood and steak so we thought it would suit both of us. I ordered ½ a lobster and Gus a steak. The waitress looked embarrassed as she admitted that they were out of lobster and beef... So I asked for mussels, no out of those too – hmm, this was fast starting to look like an episode of Fawlty Towers, it was tempting to ask what they did have, but that may have spoiled the game – I ended up with fish & chips and Gus with a steak sandwich – I guess they had enough off cuts for that. We heard someone else order crab but that was off too!

Tonight we’re staying near Killarney, we drove to a big homestead nearby and went for a bike ride around the grounds. It has a beautiful lake at the bottom of the lawn, every home should have one. The weather has been pretty wet so far as Ireland is so famous for. Mostly it’s torrential and then sunny, then showery again all in the space of an hour. You think ‘Oh good, it’s fining up’; then 5 minutes later it’s pouring again. We were woken this morning by a magnificent thunderstorm at 5.30am!

Dunkirk Evacuation & Running from Wales

We stopped at Dunkirk to see the beach that the evacuation took place from during WWII. We were very pleasantly surprised to find that it’s a really lovely beach – long, white sandy seaside. I guess we had visions straight out of all the best war movies of rolls of barbed wire and masses of soldiers. We managed to find a camping ground that has a back gate leading out onto the beach. I went for a swim when we first arrived; Gus is not feeling 100% so he stayed and had a sleep.

The next day we biked into town and visited the Memorial du Souvenir War Museum. It was a really good exhibition about the battle and evacuation in 1940. Having just been on the beach and through the port where the evacuations took place; it was really hard to imagine that all this happened on what is now a beautiful and popular swimming beach. This Spitfire engine was dug out of the sand after the war.

I was also very taken with these lines of changing huts. I’m sure the wall is mainly to stop the town being flooded but it also serves as a great place to cycle/walk along the beach. As we got closer to town the path got quiet crowded and there were lots of cafes etc.

We must be about ½ way between Paris and London here because we can see masses of vapour trails from planes concentrating in two different directions. We’ve noticed this a lot whenever we are near major cities but it’s the first time we’ve been close enough to see two at once.

There was a spectacular sunset on the first night – I ended up taking a photo (or 20) but deleted ½ of them so my friends and family won’t have too many ‘sunset’ photos to sit through... I’m not sure what the girl is saying to her father but lots of expression going into it!

The second day we decided to bike down the beach wall to see some shipwrecks on the beach. We came to the end of the wall and saw that other people were biking down the sand so decided to give it a go. They have a huge tide here and the tide was well out so it was relatively easy biking – on nice hard sand – quite a good workout still though, a bit harder than on a path.

The shipwrecks were from boats used in the Dunkirk evacuation, some of them were deliberately beached so that the troops could use them as bridges to get to boats and ships further out. There were also concrete gun emplacements along the beach. It was a lovely day and a beautiful view: so many people using the beach for walking, playing sports, cycling, running, playing, as well as swimming of course. We had a coke and cake at a cafe overlooking the beach and biked back to camp. The next morning we caught the ferry back to England – back to driving on the left hand side: felt very strange to start with, especially going round the roundabout the ‘wrong’ way. It’s nice to be back in an English speaking land though, almost like coming home! Since then have got a service done on the Enterprise; finally got the side window repaired (it got broken back in Scotland, 3 ½ months ago!); and have booked our ferry crossing to Ireland for Friday. While we were waiting for the service we went for a walk in a small wood and saw lots of squirrels scampering through the tree canopy – they are so fast! Last night we had tea in a pub, The Red Lion, next to the campground. It’s the same pub we had lunch in when we first picked up the Enterprise! The accents of the locals had us smiling at each other, not quite home after all... I didn’t notice last time that there are historical stories and pictures on the wall involving the pub – some dead bodies were laid out on the straw floor after the ‘last uprising in England’. There were also 2 framed newspaper pages from 1835 – I’ve got some old newspapers at home but not in the same league!

Now we are on our way to Ireland, we’ve decided to head over there with the campervan for 2 ½ weeks – that still gives us a few days to sell the camper and get ourselves to London for the flight home, via Vancouver. We stayed near Pembroke at Angle Bay (in Wales) and are now on the ferry from Pembroke Dock to Rosslare.

The camp we were at was quite hard case – there are about 20 campers/caravans but they are so spread out over a large field that it looks empty. Out the other way there was a big oil refinery in view – there were another two in the distance. The camp only costs 6 quid a night so very cheap! Gus, making conversation with the elderly man who greeted us and collected our money, asked if he farmed here. The answer was “No, not me, Mr Lewis is the farmer and owns the camp – I just look after the place and give the money to him”. We were quite amused by this ‘Mr Lewis’. I don’t think any NZer would refer to their employer as Mr!

Yesterday we biked down to the nearest beach, after finally escaping from an elderly man in the caravan next door who was telling us he’s been coming here for 4 weeks for the last 14 years. He and his wife used to bring the grandchildren. He even went to Ireland once, 65 years ago... We took a walk around the beach, there are two forts that were originally guarded the vicinity. Even though the weather was cool, there were a few people on the beach and even a few hardy children in the sea. I have been quite intrigued by seeing at least one person on most beaches we’ve been to using a metal detector – I guess in a place with so much history you never know what may turn up. The weather has now turned revolting with wind and rain – we hope this isn’t the precursor of weather in Ireland! Just before we left Gus saw 'Mr Lewis' trying to get his bulls separated from his cows so couldn't resist going over to give him a hand - turns out he's about 1/2 the age of the man calling him Mr Lewis and his name is Rowan...

The Netherlands & Belguim

The barbecue with the relations was a great success – we caught two trains to get to their house, carrying our sausages and salads with us – an unusual experience for us kiwis. They have a very nice house – semi-detached with a large backyard. We didn’t have a lot of language in common but they couldn’t have been more welcoming and we got by with little bits of their English and some help from Darcy and Tanja. Tanja’s father had even brought a NZ flag with him and replaced the German flag they had flying on their flagpole in our honour. Tanja’s little sister (10 years old) had cut out little kiwis with a stencil to decorate the table. So we really enjoyed our last evening in Germany and after a cooked brunch Gus and I set off for The Netherlands – just the two of us again.

The countryside is really interesting in The Netherlands (by the way Holland is a province of The Netherlands just in case you didn’t know – we didn’t). There’s lots of cattle, sheep (Texel Gus thinks), and horses. It’s nice to see stock in the paddocks again; they seem to keep them all in sheds in Germany; also windmills (of course!) and numerous canals. The water level of the canals is often several metres above the land. It’s quite bizarre to look across a paddock of cows and see a barge moving along behind them. It is however extremely flat; the only hills are the manmade ones such as bridge abutments.

We camped near Groningen then headed down via Leeuwarden so that we could cross the Afsluitdijk – it’s a 30km long dike, with a four lane highway, that was built to prevent the Wadden Sea flooding the land. Gus just reeled off too that it’s 70m wide and 7m above mean sea level. It was finished in 1932, so was no mean feat of engineering. The inland water is now called Ijsselmeer, and is all fresh water, and has completely different fish in it. This can’t have been the case when it was built, but would have happened over time as the rivers drain into it. Apparently water is released twice a day through the control gates when the sea is at low tide.

We are now camped south of Amsterdam near Aalsmeer. As we drove in we were intrigued to see houses on the edge of canals with boats parked out front instead of cars – reminds me a little of Venice...

It took us two buses to get to Amsterdam and we weaved our way around lots of suburbs – nice gardens though. We then decided to take a hop on/hop off boat cruise of the canals. The city is full of bicycles – I had heard this, but was still surprised at the numbers parked in every available space. There is a 3 storey bicycle park near the main railway station, with 2,500 spaces but it still isn’t enough. On any given day at least 9,000 are left around that area; they are looking at finding more space under the station - we’ve never even seen a one storey one anywhere else!

There are canals and cycle lanes everywhere – you can see why not many people use cars; there’s not a lot of room for them. The boat drivers of our canal boats were very skilled at manoeuvring the extremely long vessels through narrow arches in the bridges and around tight corners. It was a good way to see the city and we saw a lot of the sights that way.

Some of the boaties obviously not quite so skilled, have left their boats out in the rain a little long perhaps?

One bicycle we were particularly intrigued by was this one with timber mudguards; cowhide seat; cork handgrips and a beer crate basket – a handywoman’s bike perhaps?

There was also a funny shaped pier that got our attention – on closer inspection it turned out to be a “homomonument”. It is put there by the Society for Tolerance of Homosexuality - or something similar, can’t quite remember the wording. I remember that in Berlin they are in the process of putting up a memorial to the homosexuals that were killed during the holocaust; as well as one for the gypsies – it seems Hitler didn’t approve of much!!

There were a lot of houseboats lining the sides of the wider canals too; apparently some of them have electricity, running water and a mailing address.

To be honest we didn’t find it a very exciting city. We saw Anne Frank’s house, but the queue was horrendously long (right around the block) and we weren’t even sure we wanted to see inside it. The museums were very expensive so we kind of gave those a miss.

We didn’t really find the main part of the red light district but we had a laugh at this selection of condoms in the window. Marijuana may be legal here but it appears to be sold in the very dingy dark little cafes in the worst part of town – needless to say we didn’t venture in... So all in all we were a little disappointed with Amsterdam but don’t judge the city on our limited experience because I’ve spoken to other people who love it!

As we left Amsterdam we saw this 747 crossing the highway! Bit of a relief to see that the road went down under the runway, it did look odd though.

We could tell when we crossed the border into Belgium because of the street lights on the motorway right out in the country – looked very odd, not sure why this is the only country that feels the need to light all their motorways.

We are “In Bruges” – now if you don’t know why that is in speech marks you really must see the movie of that name, it’s one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen (as long as you don’t mind a little bad language). I can well see why they decided to set the movie in Bruges, it really is very beautiful, one of the most scenic towns we’ve seen – and that is really saying something, because Europe does scenic towns well.

Some of the houses along the canals are really gorgeous.

We went for a canal cruise; a lot cheaper than Amsterdam and we found it more fun. Mind you the boats were a lot smaller, and we were crammed in. Perhaps also fortunate that we didn't get a thunderstorm in the middle of the cruise as we did in Amsterdam!

We didn’t feel the need to climb the 365 steps to the top of the tower. I’m sure the view is amazing but I saw in the movie how horrible, narrow and steep those steps are.

Even inside the shops are lovely, check out the artistry with the bread, I don’t suppose it’s for sale though.

I had to include this shot just because I was proud of my photographic artistry – the houses are reflected in the cake lid – we had a beautiful coffee and cake here. Just randomly we sat next to a young couple and when the young man spotted Gus’ hat he said “Kia Ora”; yes more kiwis. And Happy Birthday Liam – yes our oldest son turned 21 today – we did ring him, not completely neglectful parents – just swanning around on the other side of the world...