Cobh, County Cork, Ireland
Sunday, August 23, 2009
After 6 days at sea we were ready to get off the ship. The port of
Cobh had been ready for us and was all decked out in Aussie flags and koalas etc etc. The theme was Australia day on 23rd August. We found them extremely friendly and Ireland is probably one place that we would like to return to. We got a taxi to
Cork which is a big town about 20 mins from
Cobh but as it was Sunday there was very little open, so we just walked around the town for a while and decided to return to Cobh where there was all sorts of activities going on. It was raining for most of the morning but wasn't too cold. We found our way into a local pub and had a few Guiness and also Murphys (another brand of Guiness). We wanted some lunch and they didn't have any food in the pub so the barmaid suggested that we go over the road to buy fish and chips and bring them back to the pub. Then Bob asked for a bottle of wine and he was told to go up to the local supermarket and buy one and bring it back to the pub. You wouldn't get away with that in Australia. Very friendly and I watched some Gaelic rules footy which was the semi-finals of the local competition. They were in front at half time. The locals put on some dancing demos and had helicopter rescues and all sorts of things going on. When we had all boarded the ship (except one person) there was a huge crowd to see us off and the last person to board got an enormous cheer when he sauntered up the gangway. We set sail and it was very emotional with everyone waving and cheering. A very memorable place.
