My opinion of Dublin remains fairly unchanged. It's very similar to England but it's definitely continental. Our second day in the city was fun. After a hearty breakfast at the Best Western, we headed by bus in to town. Once there we did a spot of shopping (road maps and show in-soles) followed by the start of our Pub Crawl.

I don't think we have photos of all three pubs we drank in, but regardless... 'D' is officially completed. Of course, my thee pints were all Guinness, a drink for which I'm quickly developing a great fondness.

At the end of the three pints I was starting to feel very exhausted and close to collapsing in a heap. We walked all four sides of St Stephens Green stopping briefly where I cut my hand open on a rusty cock (being silly at a metal statue). We took a brief journey on the green Luas line just so we could say we've been on both colours, before heading back to the hotel where I fell straight to sleep.

Today (Monday) has been another long day. We woke up and soon after breakfast, Andrew, Gus, Mark and I headed in to town to collect our two hire cars. Unfortunately at the Europcar branch we found they had added just under €150 of random charges, two of which are Environmental Tax and Location Surcharge. Considering that Budget just gave us the car at the advertised price, we'll be making a complaint when we get back to the UK.

Eventually we got back to the hotel and collected the rest of the gang. Going via Dublin airport to sadly drop Sadie and Matt off for their flight, we continued up the M1 towards Northern Ireland. Andrej has managed to get a nasty stomach bug, so what should have been a 3 hour journey to Ballycastle (where I'm writing this) took about 6 hours. Stopping every 20 minutes, whilst quite frustrating, meant we got to see a few extra villages on the way up.

It was all worth the delayed journey, though. Ballycastle is beautiful. Our B&B is a 3 minute walk from the coast where there's a lovely small marina and a sandy beach. Overlooking it all is a restaraunt called Quay 26 which was recommended by the B&B owner Helen. If you're ever in Ballycastle, make sure you visit Quay 26, the food is excellent quality, the portions are large and the price is fantastic.

We ended the evening in a nice pub, playing a card game based on Monopoly that we'd picked up earlier in the day was great. The only thing missing from the day is my beautiful Irish girl that I've not found yet. Maybe she'll be at the Giant's Causeway which I'm thoroughly excited about for tomorrow.