Ireland: Derry/Londonderry-Donegal-Sligo-Connemara

Back so soon? If you missed the first part of this recap of my trip to Ireland, you can find it HERE. You can find the third part HERE.

"Zoe, you like nature..."

Fourth day in Ireland began with a walk around Derry's city walls. Nice and sunny, so that was lovely. Save for the occasional slogan we spotted on a wall which made us feel a bit uncomfortable. Within the walls, Derry is an interesting place with cool little shops and cafes. Outside the walls, it feels like tensions between nationalists and unionists are still pretty high. Anyways, the city has a huge collection of cannon.

Plus a lovely guildhall (that got blown up and rebuilt).

And the Bogside, which you can see from the walls, has some amazing murals relating to the Troubles.

Sufficiently unsettled by the atmosphered, we headed into the walled city to find somewhere for brunch, the Travelodge being standardly overpriced for breakfast. Found a little cafe called Slim Jims which served a healthy version of a fried breakfast. Very good and very reasonably priced. Yum.

After that and a brief trip to the Post Office to send off the first of my postcards we were back in the car and toddling down the country roads into County Donegal. It's a gorgeous area. It still feels quite wild in places, like here where we went through the Barnesmore Gap. Out of nowhere, these great big hills appeared. I might have been singing Lord of the Rings music...

On through Donegal town and onto our first taste of the Wild Atlantic Way. This drive goes Malin Head, the northernmost point in Ireland all the way down the west coast and round to Kinsale in County Cork. First impressions: this is going to be good. This is the view from Fintragh Bay, just outside Donegal.

Yay, sunshine. And on we went, making our way out to the very westernmost point of Donegal at Malin Beg. Beautiful drive over the moors and with the sun coming out it just kept getting better.

Got checked in at the Malinbeg Hostel, run by a very friendly chap called Frank (I think...) and then headed on down to a beach he'd pointed out to us, a whole 10 minute walk from the hostel. Also beautiful. Silver Strand, it's called and with us being down quite late in the day, it was deserted save for a couple of other folks and a dog.

Played the fun game of "basking shark or rock?" and Gemma and Claire went for a paddle.

Then back up the cliff and around to another point of the headland to check out an old Martello Tower. Didn't get very close - there was a closed sheep field in the way.

And then back to the hostel for tea and a nice lazy evening in front of the peat burning fire. Oh, and rescuing a moth from the bathroom because apparently I like nature, according to Gemma.

You should have been sent a map

Morning in Malin Beg dawned slightly fresh but clear and started with a trek down to the village shop cum cafe for breakfast and to filch some WiFi. I had a delicious "small Irish" - sausage, bacon, egg, white pudding, black pudding and toast. White pudding's yummy - a bit like stuffing.

Stuffed with deliciousness, we hopped back in the car and headed just a little way down the coast, back along the narrow wiggly roads to see the Slieve League, possibly the highest sea cliffs in Europe. We decided against driving up to the top car park so had to walk the 1.5km up the hill. Not too bad and with the weather being lovely, it was quite pleasant. Some amazing views.

The cliffs themselves are awesome, but it's hard to get a sense of scale from the photos. I needed a boat or something just to show how huge they are.

And then we had ice cream for brunch before we skipped (ha) back to the car to continue the day's adventures. Not before I'd tried to find a path out to another Martello Tower and snapped a few almost-dramatic photos of Claire and Gemma. Oh yeah.

Next stop (aside from a brief one in Donegal for food) was Marble Arch Caves, back across the border in Northern Ireland, close to Lough Erne. I have very few decent photos of this, due to the low light and whatnot, but here goes.

Hurray for caves. We got to go on a very short boat ride to start with, which was cool and then on foot through the rest of the tour. There's an amazing bit where they've built a path through the river because the cave roof is too low. They call it the Moses Walk. Bit hard to see it on this shot though...

And then, again, back into the car and off in search of the night's hostel. Which proved rather more difficult than expected and included a stop at a rural pub to ask for directions and then, just as I was about to ring the hostel and ask for directions, it appeared. Apparently, I was emailed a map and directions when I booked but I can't for the life of me find it. Must have gone into my junk folder.

Did my first hand wash. The amount of sand that came out of Claire and Gemma's socks was ridiculous. Look what it did to my washing water!

Ugh.

It's still raining

It rained all night. It was still raining in the morning when we left the hostel and on Craig the hostel owner's advice, headed a few km down the road to visit the Carrowkeel Megalithic Cemetery. Which we didn't end up visiting because it was still raining. I didn't even manage to get any photos of the tomb I could see from the car because it was just too wet.

So we headed off towards Westport instead, where we stopped for an early lunch and some food supplies. Still raining. My walking boots leaked.

From Westport, we headed out towards Achill Island, on the advice of an Irish guy Gemma and I met in Iceland. It rained all the way there, puddles had reached right the way across the road and it was still raining when we got there.

We did a run to the souvenir shop for postcards and then got back in the car, bored and slightly damp and continued our drive back through Westport and on to Connemara. Which was sort of pretty in a damp and soggy sort of way. Managed to grab a few shots out of the window, which resulted in me and the camera getting wet. Again.

We ran over a frog by accident near Kylemore Abbey.

Early arrival at the hostel in Letterfrack meant an evening of boredom in which I resumed my Spanish lessons, wrote some postcards and hoped that the next day would be better. Oh yay. All the joy.

Previous part: Dublin-Belfast-Derry/Londonderry
Next part: Connemara-Galway-Tralee-Dingle

Hostels
Malin Beg, Co. Donegal: Malinbeg Hostel
Lough Arrow, Co. Sligo: ArrowRock Lodge
Letterfrack, Co. Galway: The Bard's Den

Things to do
Derry City Walls, Derry-Londonderry (free)
Slieve League, Co. Donegal (free)
Marble Arch Caves, Fermanagh (£8.75) 

The One Bag Challenge Recap

When I started looking at going travelling for a year, I decided I want to take as little with me as possible. After all, lugging all that baggage around was going to get annoying after a while. You can read more on this HERE, but basically I decided to use my recent trip to Ireland to test drive this plan.

I took to Ireland a 25l backpack and then a 65l rucksack to share with the two folks who came with me. Into the 25l bag I fit the following enough clothing to last me nearly the full 2 weeks (with 1 wash in Galway), plus my camera and a spare pair of light shoes.

My toiletries went into the shared bag purely to avoid having to take them through security, along with a small first aid kit and my Ireland guide book.

So how did it go? Here's the small bag the night before I left. Very proud of my packing skills.

Well, I didn't need to take quite so many clothes for a start. I could lose a t-shirt or two and still have enough to wear without having to do a wash every couple of days.

Taking 6 days worth of socks/underwear was plenty. I did hand-washing 2 nights to restock and that was easily enough. Did turn the sink filthy the first time round, although I think that might have been the amount of sand that came out of Gemma and Claire's socks after we went down to the beach at Malin Beg.

Ew. Anyhoo, I think I've got the clothes thing down. So, I need to cut my toiletries to 100ml containers so I don't need to worry about getting through security. And I'll need to check my first aid kit to make sure that can go through in hand luggage as well.

The guide book... didn't need to come with me. I think I got it out once in the entire trip. So I can leave guide books out of any future packing plans. Too much dead weight.

Aside from that, well, I think it's entirely feasible to travel with hand luggage only, even on trips lasting more than a couple of weeks. My 25l bag only weighed about 7kg, out of a 10kg carry on allowance, and it's a fair bit smaller than the dimension limits most airlines impose. You just have to be willing to do so washing occasionally and not want to be wearing loads of different clothes.

This is where packing lists come in. They're great for making sure you only take what you really need. Of which, more in a future post. For now, I think we can conclude that travelling with carry on only is realistic. Bring on the next trip!

Ireland: Dublin-Belfast-Derry/Londonderry

This is part 1 my posts about an Ireland road trip. You can find part 2 HERE.

Just back from my two week trip to Ireland. Here goes with the first of the recaps!

Meteor is a type of pizza...

Well, it started with the standard trip through the airport. Gemma got stopped at security to be scanned for bomb residue or something - obviously looked suspicious... Then we spotted what we think might have been part of the Team GB Para-Cycling team in Costa.

Anyway, the flight was uneventful and short and then a short wait for Claire coming in from Birmingham. Gemma was amused that the mobile network she'd picked up was called Meteor. Mostly because it's a type of pizza from Dominoes. And then off to the hostel.

Which proved harder to find than expected. Got to the right bus stop and then we got stuck. Found it in the end. Isaacs Hostel is tucked down a little side street near the city centre and it's a pretty great hostel. Reasonably sized rooms, clean facilities and free breakfast and WiFi. Advice: if at all possible, avoid the rooms at the front of the hostel because the train line passes right outside and can be quite loud, as we discovered on our first night.

There was no toucan...

Our first real day in Ireland began with the obligatory raid on the free breakfast. Then it was off into the city for some exploration. First stop, Trinity College and its famous library to see the Book of Kells. Great little exhibition, slightly glitchy audio guide. The Book itself was beautiful, but photography wasn't allowed.

Almost better was the Long Room of the Library and this I do have pictures of. In my dreams, I have a library like this. So beautiful.

After spending a while just gawping at the gorgeous bookshelves and that amazing ceiling, we headed off again and took a stroll through a park while we waited for the museums to open, it being a Sunday and the museums not opening till 2pm. Pretty, isn't it?

Almost as awesome as the museums, in fact. We started with the National Museum of Archaeology and History, which mostly involved me making a beeline for the bog bodies. I'm fascinated by these things. Not sure Claire and Gemma were quite so enchanted. Something slightly creepy about them, isn't there?

Look at the perfectly preserved fingers!

Oh yeah. Anyways, having creeped Gemma and Claire out with the crispy critters we moved on to the National Museum of Natural History. This is laid out like a traditional museum, all glass cases full of stuffed animals. It's known as the Dead Zoo. Got some amazing glass models of invertebrates though. Very cool.

Misleading sign outside suggested there was a toucan somewhere in the museum. We did not find it.

And then it was back to the hostel for tea and a delightful game of what we came to call Wall Pool. Seriously, look how close the walls are to the table. Made for an interesting game...

Her name is D

Second full day in Ireland and it was time to pick up the car. A little Micra, bit beat up and pointed out to us by the guy at the counter as "She's out there". So she had to be female and given that the only letter on her reg plate was a D, that had to be her name.

Gemma took first shift at the wheel and drove us up to the Hill of Tara, an Iron Age complex of ringforts and other earthworks which used to be the seat of the High-Kings of Ireland. Some awesome little things, like this carving just inside the Mound of the Hostages.

And this is the Stone of Destiny. Yes, it's supposed to be a bit phallic. There's a lot of fertility ideas tied up with the High-Kings.

After that it was on the Bru na Boinne, the World Heritage site which takes in the huge passage tombs complexes at Newgrange and Knowth. Personally, I found Knowth the more impressive of the two. So pretty.

Newgrange is also pretty, but we weren't allowed to take photos inside the passages.

And then onwards across the border into Northern Ireland which caused some delightful issues because our speedometer was only in km/h and not mph. Resulted in me doing some super quick calculations and having to tell Claire how fast she was allowed to go every time the speed limit changed.

We didn't really do any exploration in Belfast. Got to the hostel, nipped to the supermarket, cooked tea and went for a drive up to Cave Hill to have a look out at the city in the night. Nah, not for us. I suspect Belfast's actually got some cool places to explore, but we were only there overnight.

Don't call us Southerners

Third full day into the trip meant a drive up through County Antrim to the north coast. We opted for the coast road, which I think must be stunning in the sunshine. Still pretty cool in the damp, but we didn't stop for many photos.

First stop was Carrick-a-Rede and its rope bridge. Seriously cool and not nearly as wobbly as I expected. In fact, I was quite tempted to jump on it and see how much it wibbled. Nice chatty staff, although one of them on finding that we were English asked if we were from Essex. Not good - we're northerners, not southerners. He won't be making that mistake again.

Spent some time on the island the bridge links to, enjoying the sunshine and the view.

And then off further along the coast to visit the world famous Giant's Causeway. Stunning place, every bit as good as the photos (if a little busier). The admission includes a guided tour and an audio guide if you want it. We took the guided tour and got to spend 45 minutes or so being regaled with stories of the giant Finn McCool who built the causeway to pick a fight with another giant in Scotland. Great fun. Here's Finn's boot as an indicator of his size.

And here's the Causeway itself. Absolutely amazing.

It's volcanic, actually - used to fill most of the valley but obviously over time it's been eroded down to what you can see today.

And then we were off again to spend the night in Derry-Londonderry. Of which you can read more in the next post!

Hostels:
Dublin: Isaacs Hostel
Belfast: Global Village

Things to Do:
National Museum of Ireland, Dublin (admission free)
Hill of Tara, Co. Meath (admission free)
Bru na Boinne World Heritage site, Co. Meath (€11 for both sites)
Carrick-a-Rede, Co. Antrim (£5.90)
Giant's Causeway, Co. Antrim (£9)

Destination Daydreams: Cambodia

Cambodia... land of temples? At least, that was initially the only thing I knew about the country save the 1970s genocide. Angkor Wat - a huge complex of temples that's UNESCO World Heritage listed.

Cambodia's on the list for the Grand Tour because I've wanted to see Angkor Wat for years. And at a push, I'd visit Cambodia just to see those temples. But what else is there to do? It's not a huge country - a similar size to the UK - but I'm sure it has other things to offer.

The first new thing I found was that there are rare Irrawaddy dolphins in Cambodia. A chance to see rare dolphins? Not going to pass that up. Apparently Kratie on the Mekong river is one of the best places to see them so that's definitely going into the plan. Somehow. Just got to work out how to get there. Must be a bus service I can use - buses seem to be the main transport option for Cambodia.

Which brings me to my next point - I'll probably end up flying into the capital, Phnom Penh because it's a bit cheaper than flying to Siem Reap near Angkor. This means I'd get the chance to explore Phnom Penh too, which apparently has some lovely places to see. I could, I suppose, also take a trip down to the coast and explore an island or two. That sounds like fun.

Again, it looks like buses are the way to go when getting between places. The Phnom Penh to Siem Reap route seems to be well-travelled and there's plenty of bus providers servicing it. However, I also found a site a couple of months back that suggested taking a boat up the river between the two cities. Now that sounds interesting.

The site in question, Move to Cambodia, actually had a whole page of useful sounding info about getting between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, which you can find here: Move to Cambodia: Travel Between Phnom Penh & Siem Reap

The bit I'm interested in (besides all the useful stuff about bus companies) is the tiny section at the bottom about taking a boat up the river. Sounds like it's not the safest way of doing it, only runs outside the dry season and is a bit more expensive than the bus. It's the experience though - imagine how lovely that could be just plodding up the river watching the world go by. And when I say it's more expensive than the bus, the buses go up to about US$15 and the boat is about US$35. Not exactly expensive for a trip that can take up to 10 hours.

Yeah, that sounds like fun.

Random aside aside, what else is there to see in Cambodia? Well, outside Angkor Wat, there are beautiful old temples scattered all across the country that could be worth a visit. I'm not a religious person, but temples are cool - they just feel interesting.

Oh, and if all that's not enough and the Irrawaddy dolphins don't slake my thirst for wildlife spotting, I'm told there's a place you can walk with elephants in the east of the country. Totally going to check that out.

Might just have to learn some Khmer phrases to add to my language skills. Because obviously Spanish won't work in Cambodia.

Have I missed anything out? Any secret hidden gems I should know about?

Language Barriers: Catching up on Spanish

I've got a bit behind with my Spanish. I got interrupted halfway through season 2 by my trip to Wales and only got back into it just before I left for Ireland.

I'm on it though - back to the old hour a day routine. Or at least trying. Not necessarily finding the time what with all the adventuring we're doing around Ireland (of which more next week when I get back).

Still finding it fun though. Season 1 of Coffee Break Spanish focussed mostly on phrases used by tourists, which was great since my original idea had been to just get the basics so I could get by. Season 2 though has moved onto the grammar rules and this is brilliant. I love languages and knowing how they work, I find, makes them easier to understand. It means I can take an educated guess at what someone might be saying, even if their words aren't always ones that I recognise.

Of course, it does help that I studied Latin at school and there are some similarities in verb endings and in the verb roots themselves. For example, present tense verb endings are as follows in Spanish vs Latin:

OK, so they're not entirely obvious, but they feel like similar patterns to me and it's helping me to remember them.

One of the best things I'm finding with this programme though is that the tutor gives both the Spanish and South American pronunciations where they differ. This is great for me because one of the major reasons for me learning Spanish is to get by in Peru and Chile, which will of course use the South American pronunciations.

Once I've got through Season 2, I might take another break from Spanish for a while. I fancy trying another language. Radio Lingua offer French, German and Italian for free as part of the Coffee Break series, so I could try one of them. I already know quite a lot of German and enough French to say I don't understand, so maybe Italian?

I'm thinking though of the places I plan to visit on the Grand Tour that aren't English speaking. The next non-English speaking place after Chile is Cambodia. How hard do you think it is for an English speaker to learn Khmer? Anyone know of anyone good resources for basic phrases?

London: 'Ere, don't feed the pigeons

My sister treated me to a trip to London to see The Book of Mormon for my birthday. How lovely. She even paid for us to go first class on the train which meant my day began with a yummy croissant and a rather stewed cup of tea. Tiniest knife ever too for the spreading of the butter...

Anyways, by the time we got to London I'd managed to wake up after the 6am start. Our first stop was the Travel Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society. Caught the Piccadilly line from Kings Cross to South Kensington (pleasantly quiet at 10am) and then took a stroll up Cromwell Road to the RGS.

The exhibition (closed 5th September) was free entry, which is always lovely and the photographs were stunning. Seems to have visited from all over the world, but we had to stick our little pins in for Grimsby.

A brilliant range of subjects and places - people, animals, landscapes from all over the world. Also, these fun signs (forgive awful phone photos...)

So stunning, in fact, that I bought myself this year's book of winning images and a pack of postcards to stick to my travel door. Travel door is already getting a bit full following a couple of trips to London and Wales...

Got a bit of a surprise when the lady at the counter mentioned that I'd been to New Zealand - had one of those moments of "who are you and how the hell did you know that?!" before I realised a) that the lady was a Kiwi and b) I was, as always, wearing my manaia. Yeah... makes sense now.

Anyway, buzzing with new travel inspirations, we popped along to the Albert Memorial for a few minutes. Amused ourselves watching the other tourists trying to take selfies. Should have taken my camera, but unfortunately I only had my phone...

And then it was off in the vague direction of Leicester Square in search of the Prince of Wales Theatre. Hopped back on the Piccadilly, then onto the Bakerloo to Charing Cross to grab some lunch in Trafalgar Square. Amused as always by the tourists blithely ignoring the signs telling you not to feed the pigeons. Also the little girl who came running towards the fountains squealing that it looked like a swimming pool.

Lunch consumed, we hopped back on the Tube to Piccadilly Circus, whiled away an hour in Leicester Square playing spot the tourist (i.e. everyone) and then finally got into the theatre.

The Book of Mormon is amazing. A fun piss-take of Mormon missionaries without being cruel about it. Loads of laughs, great little story and amazing songs. Can't ask for much more. Had it stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

And then it was first class on the train back - sandwiches this time and much better tea. Om nom nom.

Awesome birthday present from my sister. Now I just need to think of something as awesome for her 25th... Ideas, anyone?

Budgetting for Travel

In planning for the Grand Tour, the first thing I've looked at is budget. While I don't want to plan everything to the last detail, I want to be sure I have enough money in the bank to do all the things I want to do.

I did something similar for New Zealand and again for Ireland. It starts with a spreadsheet breaking down the itinerary. For NZ and Ireland, this goes down to the day, but for the Grand Tour it's a bit broader.

Then it's just a case of looking at the costs of major things: hostels, activities and transport. For the Grand Tour I've also included food. Looks a bit like this:

For hostel costs, I use Hostelworld.com which, if you search for an entire country, will give you the average prices for the most popular cities.

For food costs, there's a whole assortment of sites you can use. Numbeo and Eardex have some useful info on cost of living which I used for some places. Lonely Planet's online destination guides can also give you an idea of how much it could cost depending on your budget plans. Again, I use averages.

The reason for the averages in both the hostel and food cost columns is to push the estimate up slightly. I'm pretty certain I can get reasonable hostels and decent food for cheaper than my budget suggests but I'd rather overestimate and have money to spare than underestimate and have to dig my way out of a financial hole. Also, remember to account for the number of days/weeks you're expecting on being places.

For flights, I've been using Skyscanner. For some stopping points, it's worth searching for flights from or to the entire country, especially if it's easy enough to get around internally since you might be able to find cheaper flights at airports outside of the main hubs.

I wouldn't usually include an "other transport" column, but given that for the Grand Tour I'm going to have quite a lot of internal connections, I figured it was a good idea. Nothing too difficult, just consider whereabouts you want to go and how you're going to get there - trains, buses and internal flights probably need to be included if they're going to be anything more than a few pounds because all that transit soon adds up.

Finally, activities. No need to include everything - there's bound to be things that you only discover when you reach your destination. But given how expensive some things can be... yeah, if you know there's something you really want to do, best to include it. So things like the trips I want to do to Kakadu National Park and the Red Centre in Australia which go into the hundreds of pounds.

Once everything's in, the rest is simple. How much does it come to? Can you afford it right now?

If yes, hurray for you. If not, do not despair. Now, do you definitely want to do everything that's in your budget? If you want to go right now, it might be necessary to take some things out or consider opting for lower budget accomodation - swap the hotel for a B&B or hostel, maybe. Find cheaper options for activities - is there a shorter trip available? Can you do things cheaper by cutting out the tour operators?

If you're not wanting to go right now, even better! You've got time to build up your cash reserves. Get yourself a savings account with a reasonable rate of interest and work for a bit longer. That's what I'm doing - I've switched my savings account to one with a better interest rate and I'm sticking out my job until next summer. To be honest, I probably could leave right now, but I'd rather have more in the bank. Probably comes from my dad being an accountant and my parents both being sensible with money.

There's plenty of little ways to save money too. Take your own lunch to work instead of buying it from the canteen. All that small change that accumulates in your purse or wallet? Stick it in a jar so you don't get the urge to spend it. Do you really need to buy that album, that book or that DVD? Or are you just buying it because it's on sale? I've removed my card details from Amazon so I can't just buy music on a whim, knowing that aside from my rent that was my only other major outgoing.

What tips do you have for travel budgetting? Do you have any other tips for saving those pennies?