Shaun Tanner ... A guide to Dublin ... How to track Herons and Seals

A big thanks to those who e mailed re my Birthday weekend ... was going to blog about it but it was largely a social bash respect to the gang and many thanks for new rod .... Bass everywhere are quaking in their fins !! The local had a suprise cake for me and must say that Kebab , beer and chocolate birthday cake is a concoction that Heston Bloomenthal would be proud of !

I also was v lucky as Caroline had got me a "Special" shirt ready for the launch of our boat ... the "Saucy Trout"

The trout is of course registered in Panama as this sounds trendy .. She is 16ft of throbbing pirate vessel and will be more feared than Somalian pirates !!

OK ... total digression .. Dublin ... this was a trip of extremes in that what was good was great but the city has a lot of crap features as well . Firstly there is the myth of the CRAIC and temple bar ... If your idea of a good night is to be served a round of two drinks by totally non Irish bar staff with a Dublinners CD being played and it costs £14.50 then this is the place and you have more money than sense... total rip off ...loads of beggers and crackheads .... Temple Bar ... Shite !! ........ However if you walk 70 yards out of Temple bar towards O'Connell st you will find Cassidy's bar ... Much cheaper , proper Irish who want to talk about Rugby and an altogether better experience !!

This gives the impression that trip was all about nightlife ... did far more than that .... Hotel was Ballsbridge Inn , very reasonable and a good experience . We were right outside Lansdown Rd .... from a Rugby point of view it was great ... Croke Park, Donnybrook, RDS and lansdown Rd ..all in the same city .

Spent an entire day on an excursion called "Wild Wicklow tours" It was pretty good and we went all around the Wicklow mountains and visited the sets of films such as PS I love you and Braveheart (which I thought was in Scotland !!)

Caroline at Dalkey ... very nice place where one of the local girls allegedly knocked Colin Farrel back ... The local ladies apparently swim in the sea all year around ...

This view is the Guinness lake ... actually owned by the Guinness family ... What the picture doesnt show is the fact that the water appears dark brown due to the iron in the water and the lake itself is naturally shaped like a pint pot !! To add to that the family then ship in a whole load of golden sand which gets laid at one end and hey presto ... a guinness lake !! It was good !!

From there we went on to a place called Balindalough

This was a chance to have a decent walk around the anvcient monastery , check out the "Viking Proof" round tower, and walk amongst the lakes and waterfalls.

One of the things our guide told us was that North of Dublin was a fishing port called Howth where it was sometimes possible to see seals. Am into a bit of wildlife and so we went to check it out ... On the way out on the Dart (rail system .... v good !!) it was wet and overcast and as such sightings seemed unlikely ..... but then !!

Those blobs are actually seals ... Having pretended that my phone was a fish and managed to find a less intelligent seal who obliged on a close up .... difficult when ur using a phone camera to get decent pics !!

On our last morning , following a reccomendation from a friend ... no names mentioned .. Kev Benson !! we went out to the seaside town of Bray ... All pleasant ... Caroline .. as she does went on a yomp and then came rushing back as she had found a young heron hunting in the surf .... I couldnt get any closer but the bird was great to watch !!

All things considered ... Dublin was a good break and we saw and did plenty . It is very expensive and to be honest you need to pick your eating and drinking spots carefully as some places (city centre) are shameless rip offs. The Euro is basically now worth a quid so cheers Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling ... you tossers !! ... If you look about accom is reasonable and trips like "Wild Wicklow tours" are good value.

Regards

Shaun