Ireland

Hi laddies and lassies...(just so you know, Matt is having a real giggle over his clever scottish greeting that he thought up - Mum)

I like living in Scotland because I'm going to see snow.

The longest trip we've had in the car was on Thursday and Friday last week from Aberdeen to Holyhead - this took 8.5 hrs. Then we caught a ferry to Dublin in Ireland (we drove our car onto the ferry) and that took 2 hours. Then we drove to the hotel for 1 hour. Then on Sunday we drove to Galway and this took 3.5 hours. Then we had to do this all over again to get back home to Aberdeen. This is a photo of the ferry we went on and a picture of where we parked our car when we drove onto the ferry. There were two decks of cars on top of each other (each x shaped metal railing housed a layer of cars - Mum)

All together it took about 30 hours of travel - but 4 hours of this was on the ferry.

When we were in Galway (on Monday 28 Sept) we drove along the Galway Bay coast and climbed a maaasssiiivvve mountain (314m high). Dad says we probably only climbed 200m but my legs felt like jelly. The wind was cold and breezy when we got out of the car and I put on my rain jacket and jumper but I took them both off when I was climbing the massive hill. I chucked them to Dad and he carried them up the massive hill.

The hill was rocky and we saw two caves. There were no trees - it was bare - just grass and rocks. When we got to the 'top' (of our climb) of the hill we saw some cairns. A cairn is a pile of rocks that people chuck on the pile to show that they have got to the top of the eeeenormous hill. Jo and I made our own cairn.

Then we saw a wall that people made out of rocks and it went from the top to the bottom of the enormous hill. The rocks were just put on top of each other very carefully - they don't use cement to join them together. In fact in Aberdeen and in Ireland they build lots of their field walls out of rocks that are piled on top of each other and not cemented on.. There are lots and lots of sheep and cows and horses when you drive along on the roads. The photo of me on the rock wall has a pirate ship in the background - you can hardly see it (it's a 3 masted ship about 1inch right of Matt's head. Matt is absolutely convinced it's a pirate ship in Galway Bay - Mum). I'm saying 'arrrgh me maties'. (Here's a better one of the Pirate Ship)

When we were on lots of windy roads, when Dad was going so fast Mum was so scared - saying 'stop, slow down!!' but Dad kept going fast and we were saying 'go faster Dad, go faster Dad'. When there were cars coming Dad had to slow down and Mum was like 'yippee' because she didn't like going so fast around windy corners when you couldn't see cars coming.

I liked Ireland because there is lots of things to see and when we went to the waterfalls we saw millions of rally cars. If you don't know what rally cars are - put it this way - they are racing cars. They are light but they have to have a spoiler because if they go fast their two back wheels might go off the ground and be airborne.

This is a photo of the waterfall we saw. We went climbing on the rocks at the bottom and drank some of the water - the end.

Glamis Castle

Last Saturday we went to Glamis Castle. It was so slushy and mucky and muddy - we got such dirty shoes that Mum had to wash them when we got home.

We went on the quad bikes and I went heaps fast but Sam overtook me when I had a sore thumb. Then I went faster and caught up to him and then a man called me in to open up my throttle so I could go faster. Everybody got their throttle changed so they could go faster.

Here's a photo of me on the quad bike.

Daddy had a real rifle that he was shown how to fire at some clay targets that a man made fly up into the air. Daddy hit 5 and he missed one.

We sat and watched some terriers racing each other to catch a pretend rabbit. Daddy bought us a donut while we were watching.

The terriers were pretty strong holding onto the 'rabbit' and when the man tried to get it from them they kept on holding on even when he picked them up.

We watched some people do really special tricks on horses and one of the men stood up on two horses - one leg on each horse - and made the horses go very fast and he still was standing up on them. Everyone cheered.

Someone else was on their horse, then they jumped off and ran along the ground when the horse was full pelt and then they jumped back on the horse. They were very amazing.

When we went inside the castle there was a little brown bear we saw. A long time ago one of the boys who lived at the Castle had him for a pet and he was tame - he used to shake people's hands when they came to the castle but one day he thought he'd go and play with the Angus Cows but the mother had a baby so the mother stabbed the bear with her horns and he died. The people picked him up and stuffed him and now he is in the castle for people to see.

cool things to do in Scotland

In Scotland we saw people skiing without snow!!

They were skiing on special fabric on a hill in Aberdeen. there were jumps and we saw somebody do a 540 when they stacked it.