Monday 18th April 2011 – Up at unearthly hour 03:40, showered, dressed and made way to Buchanan Street bus station for the 06:15 bus to Killarney.
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| Sunrise over the Clyde – Susan Wales |
To my surprise the bus was on the stand at 05:45, which was the time we arrived at the station. Cases loaded we made for our seats and the driver advised that as all were on board we would set off on the tour, we would have to pick up passengers from Paisley and Stranraer. Our trip officially started at 06:05 as we left Buchanan bus station. We picked up the joining passengers at Paisley at 06:45 and set off for Stranraer to meet the 09:30 sailing.
We arrived at Stranraer at 08:30 and were finally allowed to board the Stena Caledonia Belfast Ferry at 08:50 – where we finally had our breakfast.
After a three hour sail across a very calm Irish Sea we arrived at Belfast at 12:25 and disembarked to start the long 7.5 hour journey to Killarney.
To help break the lengthy journey we had a total of three comfort stops, and believe me we needed them, as anyone who has travelled on these coaches will vouch you really have to be desperate and height impaired before you use the on bus facilities.
At Rosscrea? we stopped for 30 minutes – Susan and I took the opportunity to streach our legs and explore the local heritage site – the castle.
Whilst in the litte town we did some shopping for the essentials like conditioner, razor and a facetowel. All was well until we went for the facetowel there we encountered the language barrier! I asked the you Irish lass in my clearest Scottish lilt where do I find face towels, she in her helpful Irish brogue started to tell me the fishing store was down the road. At this stage of the UN peaced discussions the irate English woman stepped in and understanding was achieved. Having acquired our shopping we returned to the bus and once again set out for Tralee.
We arrived at the Earl of Desmond Hotel at 19:25 with just had enough time to get ready for dinner,
which was not at all bad considering the length of time travelling and the miles covered.
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