Top of the day to you all ... from 'sunny' Ireland ... yes really!

[Mel B]

Missed me? :-D

 

This is the first internet access I've managed to get since we came to Ireland nearly 3 weeks ago so I thought I'd say hello just in case you're forgotten me! :D

 

We've been in the Republic of Ireland since 6 August and have just crossed into Northern Ireland today for a couple of days, hence my being able to use the web with my 3 dongle - the first time I've been on line since we left home!

 

We're currently parked up about 5km out of Ballycastle at the lovely Ballintoy Harbour along with about 10 other motorhomes ... it's almost like being in France!!! The weather has been changeable, mostly dry (very unusual for Ireland!) and we had some very hot days but now it is generally between 16-21 degrees - but so long as it doesn't rain I'm happy! We've been to some lovely places and the scenery is beautiful, some of the roads have been 'interesting' and narrow and we've certainly gone to places we wouldn't have in a coachbuilt and we wouldn't have got through. *-) The Beara peninsula (the one south of the Ring of Kerry) was fantastic but only those with slim coachbuilts or van conversions should consider going round it as some of the roads are quite twisty and narrow. The different 'landscapes' all found on that peninsula make it well worth the trip though.

 

We originally crossed over from Holyhead to Dublin and have gone clockwise round the Republic mainly sticking to the coast with odd forays inland and missing out some of the peninsulas which we've seen before or didn't see a reason for going down just for the sake of it. We're now going to tootle down the eastern side and make our way to Dublin for our return crossing in just over a week's time.

 

We joined the OPW which is the Republic's equivalent of English Heritage and have been having a good shuftie at lots of their properties so it has been well worth while doing that - cost us 21 euros each but if we hadn't joined it would have cost us about 90 euros in total to date and we've still got a few more of their places we want to visit too.

 

Oh, whilst I remember, we've bought a Tesco Irish sim for 99c and topped it up with 10 euros which gave us 20 euros as we got 10 euros 'free' for doing so! The best bit is that the cost for ringing a landline back in the UK is only 1c ... yes 1c a minute ... so I have been able to keep in touch with my Mum as there have been 'problems' with her and my elder brother who's being an absolute swine with her at the moment ... on one night alone I ran up a bill of over £10 and that's in addition to the £11 of 'free' calls back to the UK with our T-mobile sims too!!! Hence why I bought the Tesco sim otherwise I'd have a massive bill by the time I got home. It is only this cheap rate when ringing from the Republic, not from Northern Ireland, but as we won't use the full 20 euro top-up before we return home it doesn't matter anyway if it costs more from NI. One thing is for sure, I can't wait to get home and give my selfish brother his cum uppance ... but that's another story.

 

Hope you are all 'behaving' ... :->

[Guest JudgeMental]

Nice one Mel! Ireland beautiful but weather can be somewhat challenging! Sounds like you have got of lightly! :-D You don't mention cost of living/camping and fuel......

[Bojitoes]

Mel there is an excellent campsite at Bushmills, ideal for Giants causeway and a trip round the distillery is very worthwhile- particularly the "limited edition" bottles.

Sounds like you are having a bit of craic

Bob

[Sundowner]

Hi Mel, lucky you, Southern Ireland is probably our favourite destination, and we try and go there every 2 -3 years. The beauty of it is that with enough of the wet "black stuff" inside you, you don't notice the black clouds and wet stuff outside! That tends to get even more expensive though! Have a safe journey home.

[Mrs T]

We went there three years ago and are set to go again next year, we like Westport and the Connemara areas and of course the rational music! Westport has a car park on the quay and we stayed there several night at no cost, we found some great coastal areas with toilets and not a sole about wonderful.

 

We would choose the south for preference as its a prettier area. The Giants Causeway was a bit of a non event really its a hell of a walk to where the rocks are with hoards of tourists, no way the south is much better and much more foreign for the visitor.

 

If you like Irish history read the book "The Way it Was" by Paul Gannon about early life in the small hamlets, it was grim.

[Mel B]

JudgeMental - 2013-08-26 10:07 AM

 

Nice one Mel! Ireland beautiful but weather can be somewhat challenging! Sounds like you have got of lightly! :-D You don't mention cost of living/camping and fuel......

Apparently we missed the 3 week 'heatwave' in July when it got to a stonking 32 degrees!!! B-) We are currently sitting on the harbour/beach side at Cushenden and will be stopping for the night and chilling out. Probably about 20 degrees with a bit of a breeze and lots of cloud cover but the sun keeps poking its head through and it is still quite bright. We've been to Ireland twice before and both times we had a lot of rain so we thought we knew what to expect weather wise but fortunately we've been proved wrong! :-D

 

Cost of living - food and drink is expensive, a lot more than at home, and the cost of alcohol is getting absolutely astronomical, sometimes €2.50-€3.00 just for a single can of beer at the supermarket for anything with a 'name' on it although Aldi do a nice (so I'm told) basic lager for 89c for 500ml! Anyone planning on going out for a meal in the Republic of Ireland though will have to have a good bank balance as a basic lunch main meal in a pub can cost €10, and an evening meal ... you can expect to pay at least €80 for 3 courses, hence we haven't bothered at all, instead preferring to buy the local produce and cook it ourselves.

 

Camping - We're wild camping so can't comment on the cost of campsites but the last time we used one over here they were very, very expensive.

 

Fuel - per litre in the RoI it varies between €1.409 and €1.62, the most we've paid is €1.499 and the least €1.448, but we've made a note of the €1.409 a litre station so if we go that way again we'll top up!

 

Fresh water - we've got this from cemetaries on a couple of occasions (just topping up with a 15L container), toilet blocks, garages etc. Hubby 'accidentally' turned on the fresh water drain tap instead of the waste water one and emptied the whole lot out tank but we didn't find out until we'd stopped for a late afternoon cuppa!!! Fortunately we passed by a small village school and noticed that they were getting the grounds ready for the new term so we asked if we could get some water to tide us over for the night and the caretaker let us fill up which was very kind of him.

 

We had another 'water feature' in the van as the waste pipe came off the kitchen sink just as I'd emptied the washing up water down it ... oh what joy that was, an indoor 'waterfall' all over the cupboards, drawers, grill and floor ... this was at 10.00 at night!!!! Some may remember we had a water feature previously when the waste pipe came off at the bottom end where it goes through the floor of the van to the waste tank which I fixed, so I assume the top of the pipe was feeling left out! I managed to get it back on and have put a load of gaffer tape on it to stop if wiggling it's way off again and will sort it out properly when I get home. Other than that, nothing else to 'report' fault/problem wise.

[Guest JudgeMental]

Shame the way things have gone price wise..I remember well wonderful meals out in ireland..sounds like the Celtic bubble has well and truly burst! Wonderful country and people the best, I know because they produced moi! along with duke of wellington (saved englands many times)... Yeats, Shaw,Wilde, Behan, Swift, Joyce etc...etc....:D

[maggyd]

Hi Mel :-D nice to hear from you Im glad the weather has been good to you in Ireland, we did the ring of Kerry about 11 years ago now and the Dingle peninsular but that was in our zantia we have never been in motorhome ;-) but it is on the cards I loved it and its people. Its the euro than spoiled things as the second time we went we noticed how things were more expensive, also the cost of getting there is a bit ridiculous compared to going over to France.

 

Enjoy the rest of your stay look forward to seeing you on here it has been a bit quiet

 

(lol) ~~sorry to hear your Mums still having problems with that lovely brother of yours >:-) you need the MMM mafia to sort him out !!!

[Mrs T]

We found there was an additional tax on many items but have forgotten how it was described.

 

 

[Sundowner]

We used the good old Tesco vouchers for the ferry last time we went. However I think that I spent the money saved on draught Guinness. It's cheaper to buy by the pint, so we ordered 2 pints each round, one and a half for me and a half for my long suffering wife!

Our trip coincided with the Queens visit, and we enjoyed basking in her reflected glory! I wouldn't have believed it possible, but the Irish were even more welcoming than usual!

 

[Mel B]

VAT in the RoI is 23% so that accounts for some of the additional cost of stuff, plus, I assume the extra cost of transporting stuff across the water too, however that only accounts for a bit of additional cost so why stuff is so much more expensive I don't know, especially when a lot of it is made in Ireland!

 

It has been interesting listening to the RoI radio stations, especially RTE 2 which is similar to the UK's Radio 2 but much more laid back and funnier! So far we've heard discussions about various stuff including today Cheryl Cole's tattooed bum but more interestingly (depending on your outlook!) the other day they were discussion how many Irish actually like the Royals, especially William and Kate, the Queen, and even Prince Charles! It used to be unacceptable/unfashionable for anyone to be interested in the Royals but now it is okay and isn't shunned upon. The visit of the Queen seems to have done nothing but good for relations between RoI and GB which is good indeed.

 

One thing that we find quite funny is that they announce on the Breakfast radio show the births and one in particular had us in stitches - the father was called Feikin but the DJ Hector said it wrong and it ended up as Fekin which is the 'Irish' way of saying f*cking! He said it a couple of times more before he realised and corrected himself spelling out the name to be sure ... that wasn't the funniest bit though ... it was when he said congratulations to them and then that "no doubt your wife calls you Fekin some of the time to though" that got us!!! I wish I could get this when we return to the UK as it is a lot better than our own offerings ... one of the presenters is called Rick O'Shea! They edit out words such as 'sex' in the songs but will quite happily say arse and fekin and other things on the radio without batting an eyelid - I'm gonna miss listening to it for sure, ey, for sure!

[onecal]

Glad Mel you both had a great time,that's what it's all about .

Regards,

Brendan.

[BIFFO]

Please be aware that there are diesel outlets selling 'washed' diesel in both north and south locations.while you think you are getting a bargain price ......you are in fact doing harm to you pump and injectors.

The outlets selling this washed diesel are not brand outlets , suggest you buy your diesel at known brand outlets and while you will pay extra........you are doing your engine a favour.

 

 

Enjoy

[Guest JudgeMental]

http://www.rte.ie/digitalradio/faq.html :-D

[ips]

Hi mel

have a great holls

Were did you end up staying 1st night before crossing ?

Any good ?

[maggyd]

ips - 2013-08-27 11:48 AM

 

Hi mel

have a great holls

Were did you end up staying 1st night before crossing ?

Any good ?

 

When we went from Holyhead with the caravan there was a big car park at the port we arrived about 11.00pm and slept untill about 5.00am when O.H had a toddle over to the office and came back saying "quick we can get on the next fastcat" so we ended up arriving much earlier than we were booked in for :-D we hadnt known about this car [park and were quite worried as all along the approach road we couldnt find anywhere to stop.

We did see when we were leaving a ticket machine 8-) we hadnt noticed it in the dark and heavy rain !! so we were lucky I suppose that no-one was checking while we were asleep.

[Mel B]

ips - 2013-08-27 11:48 AM

 

Hi mel

have a great holls

Were did you end up staying 1st night before crossing ?

Any good ?

Hi ips, in the end we didn't go up on the previous evening and set off early on the Tuesday itself as our crossing wasn't until the afternoon so didn't actually need to stop, however there were some very good suggestions made on my thread about needing a spot here:

 

http://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/Motorhomes/Motorhome-Matters/Overnight-parking-somewhere-between-Chester-and-Holyhead/31983/#M378100

[Mrs T]

There is a Connemara radio station on SKY but as we don't have sky now I forget, it was a number like 0366 but I forget. Any speech was in Gaelic but the music was typical Irish.

[Mel B]

BIFFO - 2013-08-27 10:59 AM

 

Please be aware that there are diesel outlets selling 'washed' diesel in both north and south locations.while you think you are getting a bargain price ......you are in fact doing harm to you pump and injectors.

The outlets selling this washed diesel are not brand outlets , suggest you buy your diesel at known brand outlets and while you will pay extra........you are doing your engine a favour.

 

 

Enjoy

Hi Biffo

 

I've just Googled 'washed diesel' and there are loads of sites telling you how to get it out of clothes *-) but not much about what it means in terms of fuel, but from what I've found it is about the 'marked' diesel which is heavier than road diesel (I assume this is the stuff used for agricultural machinery, boats etc?) which has the dyes washed out and the final product can contain some impurities from the washing process such as acids etc. Is this what you mean?

 

http://www.indlab.ie/2012/washed-diesel/

 

The 'cheap' fuel we saw was being sold from a station which belonged to a bulk supplier (with loads of tankers etc) not far away, so I assume that is why it was cheap? So far we've bought fuel mostly from national stations and usually only topped up with 20 litres or so, so hopefully won't have fallen foul of anything!

8-)

[Mrs T]

Listening to Gaelic music right now on http://www.rte.ie/radio/

 

Ps Times and days of Gaelic music are and are the same as SKY

 

Ceol Binn ó na Beanna 19:00 - 21:00 Máirt - Déardaoin / Tues - Thurs

 

[BIFFO]

Sorry.....should have been more specific. The diesel is agricultural diesel which has had a dye added to distinguish it from road going diesel. Some people have 'washed' this dye from it using chemicals which are detrimental to engines. There have been several cases of engines been ruined by this diesel.

It is for sale mostly in private stations and the only way to tell is by price. Diesel is between 1.50and1.54 at the minute. Texaco....statoil.....esso.......etc all are branded outlets. You may come across some stations in the north stating they are carrying only branded diesel as they try to undermine those outlets that are selling washed diesel.

 

Hope this is helpful. B-)

[onecal]

Hi,

This is not as prevalent in Ireland as it used to be, but yes as in many countries (not just Ireland) caution is advised, stick to good brand names of fuel you know ,Sadly cheap priced diesel fuel is not always a clear indicator of laundered diesel fuel,

glad you had a good trip.

Regards 

Brendan   

[Mel B]

We're back! :->

 

Got the 8.55 pm sailing from Dublin last night and arrived back in Holyhead at 12.20 am and went round to the Beach Road parking spots overlooking the Yatch club for the night.

 

The outwards crossing was okay but long and boring and whilst the return was okay too we were boarded 45 minutes before the sailing time (ie at 8.10 pm) which made the whole thing over 4 hours!!! :-( What made it worse was the family with 2 small kids (a girl aged approx 3 yrs and an approx 6 yr old boy) who just let them run around and instead of getting up to see to them when needed they would just shout. The parents even got 'reminded' at one point by a member of the crew that they HAD to supervising the kids on the play equipment but it didn't do any good. The boy came over to where I was at one point and was trying to nick something of mine of the table, I made a couple of 'aa-aa' noises (you know the type you make that means "don't you dare you little s*d" which soon stopped him and he never came near again. >:-) Even the parents just shouted to each other rather than talk, they didn't have any respect for the time of night or that some people were trying to read, work, or sleep nearby ... I'm sure it would have been a completely different matter if they had been trying to get their kids to sleep and others were making a noise! We took our 2 smaller dogs up in 'soft' pet carriers which look like sports holdalls and they were no trouble at all, no-one even knew we had them with us! :-D

 

This, however, was nothing compared to what was to come when we got into port at Holyhead! We had been loaded we were directed onto an upper deck, having to manoeuvre up a narrow steep bending ramp and had to come down one to exit, that was bad enough but then we had to run the gauntlet of the freight trucks! It was chaos, they exited the ship at the same time as we did and travel down the same narrow 'chicane' that we did, a long and winding roadway which seemed to go on forever to get out of the port, the trucks just cut into our lane and twice we had to take evasive action to avoid being side-swiped, they thundered along and didn't give a hoot if their actions caused problems for anyone else, they'd come up the side and then just turn one way and another, with no regard for what their trailers were doing / if they were swinging out dangerously into the path of other traffic. Wacky Races it wasn't, which would have been bad enough, this was more like Mad Max! >:-(

 

The last straw was when we got nearly to the end of the 'race track' and as we went over a speed bump heard an awful scraping noise and, upon inspection a minute later when we stopped just out of the port to examine the damage, we found that the silencer box had been scraped - we went over the bump slowly so it must have been much larger than it appeared and I'm sure it must catch others.

 

One thing's for sure though we won't EVER do the crossing to Ireland from Holyhead and back again! 8-)

 

All this just confirms how happy we are to be able to use Euro Tunnel for our forays to France etc! B-)

[Guest JudgeMental]

Glad you enjoyed ireland if not the crossing. Well..we came back from Italy on the polish refugee ship run by DFDS (dunkurke-Dover) by the time campers are allowed to load every surface taken up or reserved with bed rolls by young polish families with young kids..they have it down to a t. And even sleep on the floors....so we went for breakfast which was cold, disgusting and expensive. I thought traveling mid week would be ok and dunkurke better then Calais..apparently not.......indeed cheap but it was hellish and no better than weekend crossing last year.

[ips]

Sounds a nightmare