Cashel

Sorry about how long it took to make this post, but I have been insanely busy lately. Thankfully I'm headed home in a few hours so I'll get some relaxing in! I'm going to make an effort to get as much up before I leave as possible!

So, here's Cashel!

When we arrived there we didn't know that we weren't just taking the normal tour. Instead we were actually hiking around the rock itself, guided by a PhD student who has been researching the Rock of Cashel.

It wouldn't have been so bad except that we didn't know that we were doing this so most of us didn't have hiking boots or wellies. Personally, I was wearing a pair of Chucks. Not the best choice for this kind of day.

But once we started walking it was simply beautiful!

Also included a little fence hopping. Par for the course on archaeology field trips.

Since it was so slippery a few people flat out refused to go any further. I kept going, but paid for it when I grabbed some nettles to keep myself from falling off of a slippery rock with a 15ft drop to more rocks.

This is an abbey that is close to the Rock of Cashel.

So naturally, we went to it.

Looking back up at the rock.

I found a piece of a long bone (judging by the size, likely to be a femur) in the graveyard!

And there were, of course, cows.

For lunch Gereme and I went to a little cafe and I ordered the seafood chowder. It was amazing!!

After lunch we got the proper tour of the Rock of Cashel.

Off in the distance you can see a ringfort (the clump of trees on top of the hill).

Just a bit windswept...

This is the abbey that we had explored before lunch.

There was still paint on some of the walls.

After the Rock of Cashel we didn't have any plans for the rest of the afternoon (we spent the night in Cashel), so we decided to go explore the ringfort.

More trespassing.

You can barely see it in the picture, but there is the Rock of Cashel out in the distance.

By the way, that sign actually says "No Trespassing"

That night we stayed at a hostel in Cashel...and they had puppies!!!!!!!!!

The boys attempted to cook dinner for us. It was an adventure, that's for sure.

This is the mommy dog.

One of my new friends, Adel.

The next morning Anne cooked a proper fry up for breakfast!

Delicious!!

There's Cashel for you. Next up I'm going to try to get Clonmacnoise posted.

Side note: the reason that the dates are so off on these is that the "date posted" is actually the date that I start the post, not the date that I actually post it. Sorry for the confusion!