Ireland

Well some would say I had the gift of the gab before I visited the Blarney Stone, but if I didn’t have it before I should have it now. For those that don’t know by kissing the Stone you are to be filled with Blarney.

The Blarney Castle and house were on beautiful green grounds. It was lovely to check it out and walk around the premises.

While in Ireland I was able to get in a nice twilight game of golf with Louise. It was great.

I visited Cobh, which was the last port of call for the Titanic. It also has a large Cathedral that we also visited. I went to the Cliffs of Moher, it was gorgeous. That was the only day it rained on me and it only rained for half and hour while we were walking around. It has rained everyday this summer in Ireland.

We went to Malahide for dinner with Louise’s brother and his girlfriend. We went to the local pub and for my fellow Fruli drinkers (a nice strawberry beer) they have it on tap and I had a pint of it. In Peterborough you can only get it at one establishment and the bottles are less than 250ml. It is a great appetizer beer.

I went to Galway bay, Limerick, Cork and through most of the south. I tried to pack in a lot in the week. It was fabulous.

Louise my friend lives in Bray which is 40 minutes outside of Dublin. I got to check out her apartment that she bought (condo I guess here). It is a one bedroom apartment that she had to gut and it cost 260 000 Euros, and you thought housing was expensive in Canada.

We went on a tour around Dublin and went to the Guinness factory. The factory is situated on land that is worth 13 billion Euros. So it is expected that the land will be sold. They have a great museum and tour that will probably remain on the site. It was great to check out the factory and production. They make 13 million pints of Guinness a day there.

I had a fabulous time in Ireland. It was so neat coming down on the airplane into Dublin. It looked like one big green patchwork quilt with all the different shades of green and the bushes separating the fields.

I was met at the Toronto airport by the Keating clan with some GREAT artwork. They had made bristol board signs welcoming me home, Jack helped too. Thanks for your warm welcome and great signs.

Home for a week and off to the East Coast with Michelle from work for a couple of weeks.

Alive and well

Hi everyone. I am alive and doing well. Sorry I have not updated the blog in ages, the internet in Africa, is a little hectic and the opportunity to use it almost non existent.

Africa was amazing and we survived. One day we broke down in the dessert and were 150km’s from a town on the right and 220km’s from a town on the left. Needless to say we were stuck there over night and camped at the side of the road. Luckily they had just done the grocery shopping and we had lots to eat. It was an interesting day. We broke down at 11 am and hung out all day in limbo waiting for it to be ‘fixed’ for the 6th time. Did I not mention this was the 6th time to brake down, of I forgot. At 6pm as the sun was setting we sent up our tents and hoped the mechanic could ‘patch’ the truck over night so we could carry on the next day. The mechanic quit at 1am and it was not fixed. At 4:30am we packed up the truck and moved everything, cooking supplies, books, every last thing in the truck to a temporary one and headed down the road. I will continue this story at a later date along with some more.

Just wanted to let you know I am alive and currently in Ireland. I toured around Dublin with my friend Louise yesterday. I am staying with her for the week. We are off on a road trip today and golfing in the afternoon. Tomorrow I will head to Cork and kiss the Blarney stone on the way. Louise will not be joining me as her friend is getting married tomorrow (Thursday). She says it is cheaper for people to get married in the middle of the week, so some do it then.

Keep checking back once I am home. I will update the blog with more stories and of course the photos.

South Africa, Botswana and Zambia

I am loving Africa, it is spectacular. I am doing an Acacia tour for 25 days through, South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Namibia. We have been through the first three and are looping back tomorrow through Botswana again. We will be in and out of some of the countries. Anyway, it is great. There are 21 people in my group and we travel around on a large truck. It is comfy, way better than I thought it would be. It has tables between some of the seats so we are able to even play cards while driving down the road. Some days we travel 500 km’s. Tomorrow our group splits up and we get new people and carry on to Capetown, the very tip of South Africa and the others go to Nairobi.

It is cool when you have to watch out for elephants and giraffes crossing the road. We see these animals at the side of the road often and stop to check them out.

We have been on game drives, cruises and stayed at many different campsites. The tents are nice and we have mattress pads to sleep on. It is very cold at night and I sleep with 3 sweaters on and two pair of socks and pants some times. In the day it is pleasant and I layer a lot of my clothing.

We saw cheetahs eating an impala (a small antelope) only 4 feet from our jeep that we took on a safari. They had just caught their kill. The national park is not fenced and our vehicle was open so there was no protection from the wild animals that were only 2 – 4 feet from our vehicle. It has been really cool.

We saw a pack of lions and then we saw a male lion, like the one in lion king approaching our vehicle and his lioness. They were about 200m’s away and walked right up and around our vehicle and carried on to where they were going. That was awesome.

We have seen many elephants, rhinos, hippos, giraffes and impalas. The animals are spectacular and we are so close to them. It is hard to imagine they are everywhere. When before this I had only seen some of them in a zoo.

The group of people are great and we went on a booze cruise last night and everyone partied it up. It was well deserved. It was all you can drink for 2 hours. We saw a crocodile, hippos and elephants.

In a couple of hours I am going on a micro light plane (it looks light a large kite) over Victoria Falls, which is similar to Niagara Falls.

Sorry I will have to post the photos at a later date as we do not have internet access very often and when we do it is really slow.