Sunday 1 August 2010

Day 1 - It Begins

Yesterday, the two of us spent our respective days away in our own little worlds preparing for the journey ahead.

There was a lot of packing to do. Who knew you would have to bring so much stuff for 5 weeks on the road?

This morning dawned bright and full of promise. Today is the day of the home county. Waterford, the land of our birth. We kicked things off after a late start by spinning into town.

Straight into the new House Of Waterford Crystal tourist experience extraordinaire. Chatted with the receptionists there (very lovely people) and joined a tour that had just started. The new place is looking pretty awesome, its amazing how it went from a shell of the old ESB place to being so polished and sparkling in such a short length of time. The tour around got us to see some interesting stuffs, and also did you know that they havent had a new apprentice in there for some ridiculus length of time... 200 thousand years or something, so theres a possible career in there for someone... 8 years to be a Master though, so youd have to be pretty prepared for the long haul.

After the Crystal we popped over to Reginalds tower, where they very kindly sponsored the entry fee, and we had a good gawk around the place. They must have been fair short back in the day; both of the two of us had to do some serious crouching going up and down the spiral staircase. Aparantly people used to live there until the middle of the last century, who knew?

From here it was to the tourist office and the Granary. The tourist office gave us a veritable library of information on every shpot around the country, so we'll never be short of anything to do. The Granary also sponsored the cost of entry in for the browse around, so we had a good gawk around here aswell.

Onwards we went! a bit of a drive out to see Lismore Castle... but it was closed! SO we wandered around the town for a bit, had a look in their presbyterian church, which was complete with a genuine 14th century wheelchair ramp. Down deans hill, which featured a dog on a wall... the wall was about 18 stories high and there was just this dog at the top of it, barking his head off at us... there was a holy well... and that was Lismore...

Turned the car back to Waterford, on the way we decided we'd call into Mount Mellory, say hello to the Monks... there was no one there... empty... so we sourced the first of our 40 Shades of Green...a leaflet for a prayer service. How Irish is that like?!

We took the copper coast road back to Tramore and town, stopping in Tramore for a bit of a break... and boi was it needed. That road is ridiculus.

At the moment, Im back at home gathering the last of my stuff, James will be back over in a bit and well pack the car and head over to our friends house, where we'll be staying tonight. (Cheers Jess)

And once we have all that sorted, its off to hit the town for the going away party! We'll see how that one goes now, hopefully we wont be glad were escaping the city the next morning...


Today we travelled 90 odd miles, taking in Waterford City (Waterford Crystal, Reginalds Tower, The Granary), Cappoquin, Lismore, Mount Mellory, Copper Coast, and Tramore.


Talk tya tomorrow lad!

Nathan

1 comment:

  1. Hi Nathan, Mary Sandison(McCormack)sent me this link so I added you to follow - I think I heard of you on the radio so good luck - glad you enjoyed the delights of Lismore. I have a local blog too - check it out - Dispatches from the Deise. Not nearly as challenging as yours!
    Will look forward to following your escapades.
    Catherine

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