DAY 64-66 - Cork

We have ticked off one of the 99 things you must do before you die!! yes success. What you ask? None other than kissing a rock whilst hanging upside down off a castle parapart. Or as one tourist put it as he walked the Blarney Castle grounds " I can't believe I just payed 10 euro to snog a rock" But it was not just a kiss it was the hour wait starting outside the castle then inching around the castle too scared to look at anything as you might loose your place in the line. A very dodgey spiral stair stone case and then you are at the top. Then you realise you are very high, very very high up,



...the time ticks as you move step by step closer to hanging over the side of a shear drop to kiss a rock. You start questioning if this is a good idea and discuss it with your new best friends you have spent an hour with, while practicing your kissing face



Then you are there at the front of the line. I swear it took less than 10 seconds. I'll slow it down and Irish man sitting by the edge says( run this all together very quickly and you have it) "lie down, arms up, grab the bars, down down kiss, up, next" No time for nerves and no time for tongue. After we all had our special moment with the rock we went straight back down it took about 5 mins in which time 40 other people had there way the slab. They were powering there way through the never ending line, that poor Irish man at the top was been worked like a machine. I wonder what he says when people ask what he does for a job?



Now we had paid good money to get in to the castle so we explored the grounds thoroughly. Starting with the Poison Garden or as one of the members of the pack put it "garden of death" (cue scary music) If you were a child you had to be accompanied by an adult, lucky Abby was there so the girls were able to go in supervised of course.



There were cages over some of the more dangerous plants, to stop them getting out I think. After this excitement we had to walk it off with a pleasant nature walk around the Rock Close. Nice... but NZ has ruined us a little for nature walks. We just walk around saying "that looks like ....(insert nz place name here)" and "where is the waterfall? where? oh that, I can hear a pump!" What really got us interested was the play ground, nothing like trapping poeple on a swing and pushing them around til they feel ill. Although the Fern Garden was very cool in both senses of the word, also green and ferny.



After all this waiting in lines, walking, climbing, ghosting and kissing there is one thing generally you really need. To use the facilities. Members of the pack will be assigned numbers for animenity purposes. This is how it went down. #1 goes in toilet cubicle A which happens to be blocked, #2,3 and 4 wait inside toliet building. #2 notices cubicle B is not locked but is shut. She decides to be courtious and opens the door for #3. # 3 with a full veiw of the door looks shocked and makes silent close the door gestures in a panic to #2. #2 hastily closes door and makes a run for it out of the toilet, down the path and into a conveinent empty castle tower finally to able giggle uncontrollably. Meanwhile the rest follow and hide in the tower too joininh the giggling like a bunch of 7 year olds. Just for those reading the poor lady in cubilcle B was finished her business and was standing facing the toilet and missed the whole episode or so we hope.
What could finish a day like this? well we didn't want to pay for parking over night so we seeked out entertainment in the form of the movies. Another success two for one mondays!!! We had to wait for an hour before the movie "Inception" started so we went for coffee which was no hardship. Well except for Jess. When ordering her coffee the guy asked would she like medium or large... pondering on this for a second she considered the fact they were going to be there for awhile and impulsively said large.



There are 2 important things to note here when ordering a coffee:
1. When ordering a large size it pays to have seen what size of cup large actually is
2. When the large size is called 'Massimo' this should be a very good indication of the ginormus-ity of the coffee.
Needless to say the effects of that amount of caffeine were fairly prolonged and the shakes were calmed eventually by a good feed of Sweet'n'sour Pork later that night when we got back to the Hostel.

The second day in the area we ventured a bit further a feild in the south of Ireland. To the Ring of Kerry (ROK) or as I like to say ...
" The Relentless Road of Unending Potholes of Doom!!" the first one is easier to say that is why they probably went with that title. The ROK is a coastal road that winds around stark rocky cliffs and mossy green hills, with views of the sea that rival even nz. Then it returns inland back to Kilarney through the national Kerry park past lakes and ferny, mossy trees.



The main downer was the quality of the roads, we will never complain of nz roads again!!



One village we went through had a sign : N22 in red, next to the letters it said National pothole road, 2 meters wide and 2 meters deep. That is an exaggeration but not a huge one!!



We stayed at brubar hostel and bar. On our arrival to our room the beds are generally the first to get the test. Fail. Short beds (not actually a problem for abby and kath) hard flat bed and a pillow that you could see through (problem for all). Oh and the smell... smelly "you have a foot disease you should see someone about that" feet kind of smell, not ours as it has not followed us thank goodness!! Also the pipes that would talk to you everytime you even looked at using the water in the bathroom, generally in long farting sounds. Which was actually quite amusing particularly if it was well timed. The redeeming factor however was good kiwi music in the morning in the bar, che fu and elemno-p, very nice.