We drove to Blarney and set up on the campsite, we had a great idea to get on our bikes to head in to town and see the castle.  Little did we know it was easy getting down as it was a BIG hill!! The return journey was going to be interesting.

We got to Blarney castle and stopped off in a cafe for some lunch, unfortunately we got attacked by a lot of wasps and as Rebecca got stung by wasps, she was very reluctant to be bait again.  After lunch we made out way to the castle and the grounds were immense.

We walked around the grounds and the castle was the typical Irish square building but there were a lot of interesting nooks and crannies of the out buildings surround the main castle. The grounds were vast and there were some interesting trees, one was massive and I couldn’t get on to it. Tony and the kids managed to get on to it.

Explored Blarney castle and Tony and the kids went on to kiss the Blarney stone but I declined.  To hang upside down so far up put me off. We visited the poison garden afterwards which showed the everyday plants which are poisonous and some which we never even heard of. We were talking to an American and learnt a saying of “leaves of three, let is be!”

There were waterfalls, witches caves and gardens which were surprisingly spread out. Rebecca went down a set of steps called the wishing steps, you had to walk backwards and close your eyes to make a wish.  Tony thought it was a recipe for disaster, thankfully no accidents,

Alas, it came to the end and we had to cycle back to the campsite. Rebecca and I struggled and at some point ended up walking our bikes up the blasted hill. William was a little trooper and managed to cycle up with Tony. As you can imagine we were shattered when we got back. We found a disposable BBQ at reception and managed to defrost some meat. We ended up having a lovely dinner outside the campervan and kids loved it.

Having now completed the Ring of Kerry we headed up to the Dingle Peninsular, and more specifically Dingle it self.  A very busy little town with very little parking for our campervan it turns out.  We ended up parking next to the worst distillery (in terms of serving customers!) in the world.  Who has ever heard of a distillery that you can’t by whiskey at?  What’s the point!!

Continuing into Dingle we had sights on a fish and chip restaurant that’s mean to be one of the best in Ireland.  The portions were pretty good to be fair and the environment, sitting outside in the sunshine, was very pleasant, and reassuringly expensive as everything is in Ireland

On the bright side, we also found a brewery right next door to the restaurant, and I managed to obtain a nice flight of beer; happy days.  Then, even more interestingly, a pub on the way out had over 250 whiskey’s to drink.  I did a bit of deal with the barman and ended up being able to taste a few of them.  Rebecca and William were being absolute stars during the whiskey tasting, watching a man make leather belts in the pub (yes, a bit odd!) but they were being so good and polite that the man made a key ring free of charge for both of them. One of those proud dad moments!

Moving on, we walked the back to the campervan via the aquarium, which was very interesting on the basis they also had a great butterfly area and even otters! The kids had some great face painting done, which was nice. We left dingle after a nice day, with the though that it would be great place for a boys trip!

On the way back we stopped for short period, ice cream length, at a nice beach, although I wasn’t going to drive on this one!  Back to the site and we ended up with a lovely BBQ care of the Mrs and then we turned it into a campfire which the kids loved.  A good day was had by all

You would think finding a cafe for breakfast would be easy but after many attempts we finally found a cafe serving breakfast.

Once breakfast was done we embarked on our Ring of Kerry tour.  We started off  on the ring but Tony decided to take a detour as he wanted to go to a specific site.  We saw the Cliffs of Kerry which was rather spectacular compared to the Cliffs of Moher.

After a tight narrow drive afterwards, we came to Skellig chocolate factory which Tony wanted to go to for the children.  In the process, we took out the left side of the campervan windows with scratches from a freshly cut hedge which had sharp points sticking out.

The chocolate factory was free to get in and gave out free chocolate as well, William did however, point out he was not a fan of mint chocolate and even tried it again just in case his taste has changed.  Sadly he said no, he still does not like mint chocolate!

We headed on to a town recommended by a friend for dinner and the children were hungry so I made up some instant noodles for them as that’s what they wanted. We finally got a move on to find somewhere to eat and at one place they asked how old were our children in disgust, needless to say we left before we got an answer and another customer chased us down to say the restaurant could fit us in,  We decided to bypass that place and we ended up in a lovely bistro, The kids had a second course of mussels and they were happy to do some colouring while Tony & I enjoyed our meal.

We left quite early and headed down towards Killarney.  The site was quite close to the town so we headed onto the Ring of Kerry in order to try and tick some of it off before the big tour the following day.

One of the interesting things to do was a nice walk alongside a river and a waterfall.  All very pleasent and the walk through the forest was very nice, although I wasn’t very happy with having to park our camper up on the verge as the car parks were all full.

On the return from the waterfall we happened upon a number of horse and traps for hire.  It seemed a bit of a bargain to use them to explore the local country house and gardens so we hired one.  The kids really enjoyed the ride, and at the house we had some time to look around the gardens, plus, some amazingly huge ice creams were consumed!  On the way back both William, and a slightly reluctant Rebecca climbed to the front of the trap and learnt to drive the horse.

The site wasn’t great as it was really on a main road, but it did have a bit of play area which the kids liked.  The end of another day!

We set off to visit Bunratty castle which was surrounded by a number of 19th century style shops and houses that they have moved from their original locations to be included as part of the experience.  A nice pub was included as well as sweet shops and some general convenience stores.  There were quite a few animals there as well as a nice play area for kids and ice cream.  The whole experience was quite nice although the castle itself wasn’t amazing

Off we go again and headed to Limerick via the Cliffs of Moher. After 3 hours of driving we unfortunately couldn’t get in as it was full so we headed in to the a nearby town and stopped off a pub specialising in seafood. We managed to park up and sat out in the beer garden and had a couple of platters.  Rebecca & William was overjoyed to get crab claws and smoked salmon.

We headed back to the Cliffs of Moher and managed to get in 2nd time round and the views were amazing. We called ahead to the campsite to tell them of our late arrival and they suggested taking a ferry route which was quite scenic.

We arrived at the campsite, or so we thought we did but had to drive another few miles to get to the main section.  We ended up on a forest campsite in a national park which had a double decker bus on their children play area with a slide.

Before dinner we took a long walk to the lake and old house, along the way was a fairy trail as well which the children loved.

Another day in Galway, we set off on our bikes again and headed off back to the town to explore properly.

We visited the aquarium and the kids really enjoyed the rays and sharks. We carried on to the main part of the town and even fitted in some shopping (Rebecca got a new rain mac and fleece). William managed to persuade Tony to get him a green dinosaur balloon (I ended up carrying on my back on the bike).

There were a lot of street shows and the kids sat and watched an escapee act from chains. We opted for something different for dinner and had Thai fusion which gave a serious amount of food, we took a doggy bag with us as we couldn’t finish it all.

Was glad to leave the lake campsite, there was a lot of mossies there but it was nice to wake up to a lake view.

Off we went to make our way to the Enniskillen caves, they were very interesting and even had a boat to take through parts of the cave system.  Rebecca made sure she got to sit at the front of the boat, it was kind of eerie and at some points the water level was only a couple feet deep.

After the caves, we made our way on to Galway.  We were a bit worried as this was the only place which didn’t reserve a spot for us. It was first come first served basis and only accepted cash. We made it on time to get a spot and set up. Instead of driving in to Galway, we decided to all cycle in to town which was lovely (albeit a little hairy on the roads).

Galway was a really lively place and lots of bars and restaurants, the arts festival was on which was equivalent to the Edinburgh fringe (which was the next stop for most artists). We settled on a fish and chip place for dinner which had a restaurant section.  Rebecca wanted seafood and the platter we ordered was amazing – it had king prawns, scallops, mussels, calamari and fish. It seems our kids have expensive taste and enjoy seafood immensely especially crab claws.

We stopped off in a pub after dinner in which we only had a swift one as the children started to get tired and we had to cycle back to the campsite.  We made it back on the bikes safely and we were pretty much ready for bed 🙂

The day started like all good days do, with a Whiskey tasting at Bushmills Distillery, the oldest in the world.  It seemed rude not to buy a couple of bottles and some Bushmills related souvenirs

We then headed of to a National trust beach for lunch.  Seemed a great idea to drive our enormous camper van onto the beach with all the other cars, right up until we got stuck and needed to be pushed by a bunch of locals to escape.  Lunch was pleasant, although windy, but more importantly it was lovely for the kids to play in the water.  I never knew that Ireland had amazing beaches, but they do; excellent sand but the water is still very cold

After being pushed of the beach we headed to the next site; but it was a bit of a challenge getting there, as every road we tried to go down ended up in a diversion. 4 Hours later we’re in the campsite just on the UK / Ireland boarder, over looking an amazing lake. I took the kids down for a walk and we met a nice couple fishing which the kids really found interesting, particularly when the lady caught something.

We went to dark hedges it had a fairy trail at the beginning that was nice. But when we got to the real bit I took in a feeling like it was a mysterious trap. I felt spooked having that feeling. Partly avoiding wasps nests. Knowing I’d be safe we had a picture taken even though it was creepy.

After we went to a rope bridge not knowing that we had to have a 2 hour wait! Finally we managed to get on the rope bridge we saw gulls diving. On the way back I did star jumps on the bridge mummy went all giddy and didn’t like it.

A weeny bit later we went to the giants causeway, it was giant size amazing! I kept on running and jumping, I found it really FUN and tiring.

Then we went back to the campsite with the enormous play area.

Rebecca 😁