Day 65 - Kilkenny to Dublin for flight to the UK (quick before the Queen arrives!)

The waitress at the hotel I was staying at gave me good advice on driving back to Dublin this morning, due to the significant road closures broadcasted due to the Queen arriving the next day.  The motorway from Kilkenny to Dublin was easy and fast – maximum speed 120km, but once I hit Dublin it slowed right down and it was fascinating to see Garda on foot approximately each km down the side of the highway.  People were also very busy with mowers etc cutting the grass along the side of the road.

I made it to drop off my hire car, but not before taking a wrong turn first and ending up at the airport.  Very stressful!!!!  Anyway, all was good and I was at Dublin Airport in good time.

It was interesting listening to the radio on the way to Dublin – two top stories were:

1. The Queen’s visit –first time by a British monarch since 1912.  She won’t be doing any sort of walk-about, all the events she is attending are for VIP’s, which is upsetting the Irish public.  Some however understand the significant risks of her visiting the country.  She is coming for 4 days and this is seen as being an extremely significant event for the country, whether people agree with it or not.
2. Jedward – 2 Irish adolescents with ADHD (my opinion only) who were representing Ireland in the Eurovision song contest.  The contest is huge here, and apparently is very popular with the gay community.  The guys sang a song called Lipstick that is playing on all the radio stations – very boppy.  They did not win but it gave Ireland a lift to see them on the European stage.

The flight from Dublin to London was on a little 56 seater...fairly smooth considering.  Once again, I made my way via public transport from Heathrow to Farnham with Olly picking me up at the station.  She and Pat had only just got back from a couple of days away in Portugal themselves so it was a sedate night.

Note : have been on 8 planes to date!  Not bad for 9 weeks of travel.

Summary of time in Ireland:

• Total km’s driven in the 12 days – 2281
• Total photos taken in the 14 days – 1956
• Number of accommodation places stayed in – 10
• Number of pints of Guinness – 1 (well, ¾ of it anyway!)

In hindsight, if I did this trip again, or come back to Ireland I would:

• Definitely hire a car for the flexibility it provides
• Use Trip Advisor to book my accommodation as I have not had a place that I would consider to be bad yet
• Spend more time reading the finer print of my travel insurance to see if I really needed to pay the additional money to reduce my excess (E12.50 a day to bring the excess down from E1,000 to E50), or my travel insurance would cover ALL areas...really hard to fully understand the fine print
• Definitely either have either my insurance or additional payment for my car as there have been some really hairy moments when I had to avoid animals on the road, travelled the wrong way up a one way street (actually only did this in Cork), had cars coming from the other direction and what felt to me only millimeters of distance between the two of us, and spun off the road once in the gravel.
• Would pick 4 places and spend 3-4 days in each, so that I had plenty of time for long walks
• Go to some of the places I missed this time ie North West corner of Ireland, Wexford, possibly Ring of Kerry, and more in-land places.