Photos!

So here are a few photos from my half term in Ireland and Scotland!

Belfast city hall

Belfast peace wall

Along the coast

Carrick-a-rede

Giants causeway

Irish seaside

Cold day in Glendalough

The royal mile, Edinburgh

Edinburgh castle

 Tomb of Thomas Riddell

View of Edinburgh city

 Halloween

Highland cows

 Loch Ness

And that's it folks!! 

Molly xx

Ireland and Scotland

As most of you will know, i just spent my last half term in Ireland and Scotland. It was a wonderful 8 days away, driving up and around in the rain and cold. i arrived into Dublin early, which gave me the rest of the day to explore. A walking tour around the city gave me a better idea of Irish history, as i literally knew nothing. Dinner was in Temple Bar, a nice pub and bar area. I walked past the Guinness factory, but didn’t go in, but i still went past it.

Then i was off to start my tour early next morning. I did a 3 day north tour with Paddywagon. Highly recommend it! Turns out we had 7 girls on our trip, one Danish and six Australians. What are the odds hey? we started heading up north towards Belfast. Had a few stops a long the way, saw a  real head in a box, Hugged a stone that if you can reach the whole way around it makes you preggas, then did a black taxi tour in Belfast. There is so much recent history that i was very blind to. They still separate the city with a peace wall which is shut every night. Out taxi tour guide is very well known in Belfast, he has even given his tour to Vince Vaughan! Then we headed back to our hostel for the night before heading out for a pub tea.

Next day we ventured out to Giants Causeway and to cross the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. The scenery and coastline is all so gorgeous. The colours, especially in Autumn are vibrant and so pretty. Then we headed onto Derry for our second night. A walking tour in Derry took us around the place of Bloody sunday. Now this was a rather scary walking tour, as literally it is still so fresh in peoples minds. The guide was fantastic, he told us absolutelky everything he knew and more. Then we were off for dinner and some good old pub music, which turned out to be not very good.

Next day we were making out way to Galway before heading back to Dublin. A lovely seaside lunch of fish and chips before arriving in Galway. Got through half a walking tour being having to catch the bus back to Dublin!

The next day i did a day trip to kilkenny and Glendalough, saw some beautiful Irish countryside and the bridge from Ps i love you. Our guide for the day, JJ, bought along his son, Buster, which made it a big family affair. We heard all sorts of stories about his family and wife always crashing the car, very entertaining. And he sang for us too, which was lovely. An afternoon in Kilkenny was lovely, then a trip home in the rain.

The next i was up at 3.30am to catch a 4am shuttle to the airport to catch my flight to Edinburgh! Arriving into freezing winds, i started off with a walking tour with a very passionate guide. i think our tour went for an hour longer than everyone else's because he just couldn’t stop talking. i saw where Jk Rowling sat and wrote the first two Harry Potter books. i also found three grave stones with the names, McGonagall, Moodie and Thomas Riddell. Sound familiar? This graveyard was where Jk Rowling found alot of her inspiration for characters. i also went and saw The Lion King! it was so good! had a really good seat and i could not stop smiling the whole time.

The next day, i later found out i had booked my tour for this day, but instead i did city sight seeing tours around and our of the city. The buses took you everywhere, to all the main stops of the city and i learnt some more history. That filled up the whole day until i realised i had missed my tour. To cut a long story short, the people at Haggis tours were all very nice and let me go on another day. SO i went to the castle the next day, spent a couple of hours up and around there and got some good views of the city. Then i went for walkies along the streets in the old town.

Finally got on my tour to Loch Ness! with an early start off, we had over 500km to drive in the day. Eventually got to Loch Ness at around 1pm after a few little stops along the way. i did the Loch Ness cruise, where they took us on a boat out onto the Loch and told us all the stories and showed us all of the sonar pictures. After being up there it is pretty safe to say its hard not to believe there are creatures living in the Loch. The biggest sonar picture being a 11metre creature within the lake! Got back to Edinburgh at about 8pm that night, very tired and packed ready to catch my flight the next morning.

And ive been back at school over a week now, getting back into the swing of things before i head to Rome then home! so excited for Christmas, spending it in Victoria this year before heading back to Tassie on new years eve eve.

i’ve had the most amazing year away this year, met the most amazing people and im so grateful for the opportunities given to me. i wouldnt change it for the world, but its safe to say im ready to come home now!

ill post photos in another blog post, so look out for them!

Molly xx