To be sure, to be sure....

With the countdown on till we head back to NZ (13 days to be precise) we managed to squeeze in one more trip... Galway, Ireland. Some friend of ours from NZ live over there and were nice enough to put us up for a few days. Our visit was also conveniently timed to see the yachts involved in the Volvo Ocean Race depart from Galway on their way to Stockholm.
We were up at the crack of dawn to head to the airport (this resulted in a very limited amount of sleep for me as I had been to the Britney Spears concert the night before... I know crazy but it was cool!) so Shane had a particularly snappy wife on his hands that morning...whoops!
We arrived into Shannon and picked up our rental car before heading through the countryside to Galway! We arrived in Galway at about 10am and I was in much better form after a little nap in the car. We caught up with Nick who took us out to their place, The Farm House...on a road with no name - so Irish you have to love it!
We headed into town and had a look at the boats and the village that had been set up for the Volvo Ocean Race. After a bit of lunch we carried on around to Salt Hill and had an ice cream on the beach, while we were there a dolphin came into the bay and was showing off quite close to shore... was a great way to spend a Friday! The guys decided that a BBQ was in order for dinner so they made it their mission that evening to get the coals as hot as possible... what actually ended up happening is that Nicks garage was turned into a smoke house... (the weather wasn’t nice enough to sit outside) so they reeked for smoke and managed to catch up without burning the garage down - very surprising!
The next day we headed into town and found ourselves a prime position to watch the boats leaving the marina and head off into the Galway harbour to start the next leg of the race. The atmosphere was fantastic, there was huge crowd support right around the marina and the bay as the boats headed out. After that we split up and the girls headed off in search of the perfect bridesmaids dress for Raylene and the boys went to watch the beginning of the race before heading to the pub. We managed to get a few ideas for dresses before catching up with the guys and deciding we would meet them back at the Farm House. Well 1 pint turned into many and they staggered in late that night both having experienced the full wrath of the Irish pub!
The next day it was up and off mid morning, we had decided to head to Moher Cliffs. These are in an area called The Burrens, and are currently in competition with Milford Sound for a natural wonder of the world title. The cliffs were impressive, they drop straight into the sea however I am sure that we have similar scenery at home.... the girls favourite proved to be a crow that was quite friendly and took a liking to Erin.
We headed back through The Burrens to Kinvarra, a small Irish town not far out of Galway. It was here that we met up with Jon & William and their Irish sailing friends. Unsurprisingly they took us to their local pub... seemed a rather common theme... and we had a catch up. While we were there a local band sat down and started playing some tunes, all of a sudden the place was pretty packed and the atmosphere was wicked! We didn’t stay to long however as we had to race back to catch our plane... which ended up being delayed! Oh well the joys of travelling... All in all another fab weekend away!