Travel notes

On our second full day in New York we decided to follow some of 'The Great Saunter', a 32 mile circumnavigation of Manhattan Island. We picked on the section below where we are staying on 45th Street, moving in a clockwise direction. This was not a great choice as much of the riverbank on the lower east side is under construction which pushed us inland through mostly unattractive urban housing estates. Once we were below Brooklyn Bridge things sorted themselves out and we were able to enjoy the extensive parks just like New Yorkers. It's hot at the moment. Roughly 30 degrees celsius with a bit of humidity so the walking is harder. The following day we jumped on a train to Cold Sping, a small town north of New York (pop. est. around 2000), up the Hudson Valley. There are mountain walks accessible by foot from town so we embarked on the Bull Hill loop which is 5.5 miles with a climb of just over 400 metres. At the trailhead a woman warned us a snake was on the path, not the i...

Two of our favourite things in New York are Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum. They're conveniently next to each other, and despite Vicki stopping to take too many photos of squirrels we made opening time at the museum.  The Met is full of stuff. To really appreciate the various collections you would need multiple visits. The locals are very lucky in this regard. We had to satisfy ourselves with as much as one days attention span would allow.  Towards the end of the visit we were approached by a volunteer in the Greek Art collection who took pity on us and explained what we were looking at. Our discussion broadened to some of the other collections they have. I can't see some of it happening now, items removed from their place of origin. Lucky us though, we get to see it all in one place. The European art collection is pretty impressive. Degas, not a particular favourite for Kieran, but this sculpture captures your attention  This guy needs a big room. S...

There are so many flights between Dublin and the USA that they have a dedicated set of gates at Terminal 2 with a US Customs and Border Protection preclearance facility. It was quite a process to get to our gate, which for us was the wrong one. We queued up to board a flight to the same destination at the same exact time, but a different carrier. We had to quickstep up a flight of stairs. The boarding pass had a generic reference to the terminal, not the gate number, but still poor form on our behalf. We left the United Airlines flight looking like it had hosted a kids birthday party. With passports at the ready, we entered the terminal at Newark to be pleasantly surprised that we were in. The pre check in Dublin was the check. Newark is a nice airport. It's been in the news recently at they are short staffed, causing flight delays. We're hoping this doesn't impact us on the way out  After a bus trip we were in Manhattan and checking in to an overpriced hotel. It's very...

Tallaght is deep in Flanagan country. Kieran was half expecting to be recognised. You're back then? We travelled here from Tralee mostly on the M7 blasting along at the 120 km speed limit. We randomly decided to visit the Wicklow mountains for a walk. Unbeknown to us, it's also the location of a much visited Monastic village, which was a treat. Another Round Tower and the walking was decent too.  Having nearly completed our big driving loop Dublin<->Dublin our advice to ourselves is not to drive so much. We have completed a shameful 1,800 km in 6 days. There's so much to see, you can't cover that much in a week without compromising the quality of the experience. Kieran contacted his distant cousin Mark Humphrys who has been researching his family tree for 42 years. His mother Deirdre Flanagan (and Mark of course) are of the same pedigree as the NZ Flanagans. Mark treated us to a tour of various family points of interest including The Bird Flanagan pub named after ...

Our host in Galway has generously prepared itineraries for guests on road trips. This came one day too late for us as we had already touched on his day 1 recommendations so we had to jump to day 2. This took us along the coast from Galway towards the Cliffs of Moher. He suggested that we bypass the famous cliffs in favour of what he described as a more intimate experience further down the coast at Kilkee. His insight was clear when we came over the rise at Moher to be greated by hundreds of cars and tour buses. It was very unappealing so we didn't stop. We ruled out Kilkee as that was too far, so we had to be satisfied with the cliffs we had already seen. He also recommended we spend some time investigating the Burren National Park and call in on an Irish Round Tower at Kilmacduagh. We did both, threading the Mazda 2 through a maze of roads. A stiff drink was required by the time we reached home base. The round towers are unique to this part of the world. They were built near monas...

It's been whirlwind couple of days. We arrived in Dublin after a short flight from Glasgow, picked up a rental car (6 speed manual Mazda 2) and drove to Donegal. The rental transaction was a bit of a pain. They always want a credit card because they take a deposit using a hold. Hertz say they can't process a payment from Wise when I return the car, which sounds like a them problem. Anyway the cars perfect and mostly fits on the backroads. We quickly learned that the more digits in the road annotation, the worse things get e.g the N12345 will be suitable for nothing wider than a horse. We're loosely embarking on a tourist route known as the Wild Atlantic Way which runs down the west side of Ireland. Our first big bite of this was a loop around the north western peninsula known as the Inishowen 100. Think of rolling hills with a carpet of green grass sprinkled with sheep and stone houses leading to wild beaches and sheer cliffs. It really was a beautiful thing and as much as ...