Fisherman's Grove, Dunmore East (July 21-23)

I don't know if you guys remember, but the Kenney's were here for a quick visit while in Scotland for Cathy & Jim's wedding. When Luke and I went to meet them at the pub, we also met a great Canadian couple - Brent and Sharon. Well, we ended up hitting it off with them and meeting for a pint about 3 weeks ago and then ended up planning a trip to Co. Waterford for the weekend. Sharon works for a cottage rental company so she organized a 3 bedroom place and a rental car and the four of us drove down to Dunmore East.
We all had to work on Friday (Well, except Luke) so we agreed to meet in front of Pearse Tavern at 7pm so that we would all have time to pack and Brent and Sharon would have time to pick up the car and meet us. They arrived pretty much dead on time and we were all raring to go! We hopped in the car and made our way out of the city.
The drive wasn't too bad. Brent has had lots of practice driving so it wasn't too nerve wracking (Don't worry everyone, we obviously made it safe and sound). We drove for a while, made a stop for munchies and then realized that if we didn't boot it we might risk missing the last ferry at 10pm which would add another hour or so to the drive. Brent floored it (Reasonably, don't worry folks) and we pulled up to the ferry about 10 minutes before it was to leave (Which was lucky because we thought it was leaving at 10pm but it was actually leaving at 10:10!). We turned off the engine, got out to stretch our legs and waited. The ferry ride was interesting. It started moving before we were even parked so it felt incredibly weird driving on a moving ferry. The ride was only about 5 minutes long so before we knew it we were back on the road again, but not for much longer as we were almost there!
We pulled into Fisherman's Grove Holiday Villas and found our #23. It was a great 3 bedroom townhouse with big kitchen, 2 bathrooms, a living room, dining room and a backyard with a table and chairs. We dumped our stuff and cracked open the pints.

(Luke)
We kicked off the evening with a few rounds of pyramid (a classic drinking game) and then moved on to a few others before heading out to the beach with the frisbee to mess around. We tossed the frisbee around while attempting to find the beach. The actual walk to the beach should have only taken no more then 10minutes, but in the dark and after many drinks already, tossing a frisbee and trying to carry a bag of more beer it took us a lot longer then that. But as least we were in the fresh air. ;)

Once we found the beach we all decided to go into the water. Jess got the farthest. It was COLD. Really COLD!

Once we got our shoes on etc we went up the little hill and sat on the patio in the local pub. At this time the pub was not serving any more beer which really didn't matter cause we had our own bag.

We eventually made it home around 2ish or so and went to bed.

Saturday













Saturday we got up around 11am and I got on the breakfast duties. I'd picked up all the breakfast stuff the day before from our local butcher. It was a good fry up - Irish style!

Once we were all ready we decided to go explore the town. (Oh ya quick update on my football adventure. It ended after 1 week of training. I turned oddly on my foot and have been limping and am sometimes in uncomfortable pain so walking with me takes longer. But what can you do...).

So we slowly made it to the town and it was nice. Very small Irish style houses with thatched roofs everywhere, brightly painted houses. Typical seaside Irish commnunity. We were trying to find somewhere to rent fishing rods or take a boat trip so we walked to the harbour. Unfortunately there were no fishing rental places and it was getting colder and rain started to come down, so we opted not to ask about a boat cruise. Instead we went and had a pint at a pub... cause thats what you do to keep out of the rain in Ireland.

We enjoyed a semi-decent pint of Guiness, I am always picky with the pints and put them all up against the Pearse pint. It wasn't that good.

So we had one and left. Then we went to another pub and had a better pint. We decided we were all pretty lazy and had no real plans to do anything too exciting. The conversation was good and we all enjoyed each others company so we stayed. The pints kept coming. We eventually got hungry and ordered some seafood chowder with chips (fries) and fish cakes. The chowder was to DIE for. Best any of us ever had.

After a couple of hours in the pub we decided we should hit the grocery store... to get more beer that is. And Brent and Sharon had some game they wanted us to play on the beach. It involved sticks, plastic cups, frisbee and yes, beer.

Like clockwork as we were walking to the beach and 6pm hit, the clouds and rain disappeared and bam the sun came out. It seems to happen everyday here - the 6pm sun.

We played the game for a bit and eventually Jess and Brent were brave enough to go fully into the water. After that it was time for dinner we walked along the main street looking at menus and it was all way over priced or just not that interesting.

Thank God we found a chipper. It saved us about 50€ and the food was pretty good too, for a chip shop. Fresh Cod, chicken nuggets, chips, the usual.

After dinner we sat around and eventually started to play more drinking games. And that is how Brent and I ended up in the ladies bikini tops. We lost... in a way. I hit the sack before everyone else. My foot was killing me and I was tired after a whole day of fresh air and drinking.

Sunday/Ferry Ride Home


Sunday Sharon made breakfast and we cleaned up and had to leave as we needed to be back in Dublin at 4:30pm to return the car.

All in all great Canadian weekend. Good times with good friends!