Mon, 07 Jul 2003

author Tim	location Onboard Stena Line ferry bound for Fishguard, Wales
posted 21:24 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/Ireland/Ireland 2 ( all photos )

Leaving Dublin, and Ireland ( 6 photos )
Wow - so much to catch up on - it's been a few busy days in Dublin recently, so much so that we haven't even thought of the journal until now, as we sit on the ferry, in the docks at Rosslare. Let's try to get this all down.

[ entries separated ]
Which brings us to today - Monday. The morning wasn't too bad, we said our goodbyes to Gail (she is planning to come out to Oz in March so it's not all bad), before cleaning up after ourselves and heading back into town to find the bus out to the caravan park. Finding the bus stop proved not too much of a problem, but getting a bus was another matter. An hour and a half of waiting later (during which Liz had a wander as I stayed with the bags), we were on bus 69, trying to get back to our beloved Rosie.
We came towards the caravan park in quite a different way to that which we left it, so where to get off became a guesswork exercise (I suppose we should have asked the driver but that seemed a bit to easy). This left us not quite where we expected, jumping off the bus, wandering one way until we found a service station to ask for directions, then wandering back the other way for a mile or so to the park.
Along the road there was what I guess is called a commune - a bunch of old beat up caravans parked on the side of a four-lane highway with quite a lot of people living there, in reasonable squalor. We have seen several of these here, not sure how they get away with it, but nobody seems to mind.
So, we extracted Rosie from the lockup, threw the bags in and hit the road. Choosing to avoid the cursed semi-ring-road, we headed west out of town before Liz carved us a great way through the back roads, taking in the beautiful Wicklow Mountains south of Dublin. We stopped for lunch hidden away totally in a picnic spot beside the road, where the silence (except for the ringing in our ears from the nights in Dublin) was total. We ate from what food we still had in the van, making some sandwiches once again which hit the spot nicely.
Choosing not to stop after that, we headed straight for Rosslare, through the increasing fog. We arrived very early for our 21:50 ferry back to Fishguard, and so cooked some dinner in Rosslare town carpark, before enjoying one final pint of Guinness (well, ok, Liz had some cider) then driving on to the ferry.

So here we sit, feeling a little queasy on the ferry, and having totally enjoyed Ireland. Like everywhere I guesss, we feel as if we could have spent more time here, but there's always next time.
This is one place we feel there definitely will be a next time for.
We now head back Across England.

author Tim	location Wassenaar, Netherlands
posted 20:47 CEST 11/07/03	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/Wales/South Wales ( all photos )

Crashing back in Wales ( 6 photos )
The remainder of the ferry ride went quite well - nothing much to report as I went to sleep fairly rapidly.
Upon waking, I somehow managed to convince Rosie to shuttle forward from her precariously parked position (on an angle right at the back of the boat - we were well and truly last off), back to the same carpark where we spent the night before we came over. Plenty of other people had the same idea, we all slept rather rapidly.

(customised)