Well hello from Ireland, today is Sunday and we are in Galway.  The past week has been eventful, with me coming down with a chest cold that followed me from Abu Dhabi to Dublin to Nenagh.  Its finally decided Galway may be the place to leave me in peace!!!  Apparently I still sound like Daffy Duck after smoking 60 fags a day for the past 6 months!!!  Thanks Wazzy – love you too.

As you know we stayed in Kildare on Wednesday night and went to the Irish National Stud on Thursday morning.  All I can say is wow – what a place, the stables are amazing – I was chatting to the yard foreman about bedding – they only use straw, don’t like shavings recon it causes sore spots because it compacts and doesn’t cushion like good quality straw. 

Thursday afternoon we drove down to Bloom Barn, it isn’t in Nenagh as I thought but about 30 minutes North towards Portumna, which meant it was more out of the way than we thought.  The cottage was nice and quite well appointed but we decided after a couple of days to move down to Galway rather than keep commuting.

Friday was spent around Nenagh, we checked out the castle and town in the morning and then did a drive around the area and checked out ruined abbey’s and other cool stuff!!!!

Saturday we headed South-West to the Dingle Peninsula – scenery was spectacular, then the mist came down so we stopped at a little hamlet just out of Dingle and had a wonderful seafood lunch at a restaurant called the skipper, then continued around the Peninsula – there are some amazing old ring fort remains and beehive huts as well as other pre-historic remains all across the peninsula.  Its quite amazing to see sheep grazing over these structures, and the locals are so used to them, they don’t even really notice them.

Today I have to say has been the best day yet, we have spent the day in the Burren, which is a geological marvel, it was formed when Ireland was semi – submerged in tropical waters – just a couple of years ago!!!!! As the land mass moved and lifted out of the sea the rock strata began to break up and formed what we see today.  There are so many pre-historic sites including portal tombs that you could spend days just touring them all – unfortunately the afternoon turned wet and miserable so we didn’t do many and opted to head to our nice warm hotel!!

But the best part of the day was the Bird of Prey Centre, Warren and I did a hawk walk, with a pair of Harris Hawks, James the falconer gave us instruction before taking us on a guided walk through the woods where we got to hunt Al and Celeste, we were so lucky, as we were the only guided walk booked in James had us out for almost 90 minutes and had us actually letting the hawks hunt, not just take the chicken and mice that they use as rewards.  I have to say it was incredible, I didn’t realise how gentle the hawks were, even taking food from the glove there is no biting - not like a galah or cockatoo!!!!!

So are we enjoying ourselves you ask – I think the answer has to be YES, weather not withstanding there is so much to see and the Irish friendliness just shines through.

Take care all, I will blog again later in the week.