Kilkenny
Date: 28th January 2007

After the night out in Naas, and a few hours sleep on JP's floor, I awoke around 9am to the sounds of 3 other men trying to recharge their batteries as best they could. I had woken 2 hours or so beforehand cos I was in need to relieve my bladder. I had noticed Pearson with his hand over his ear, no doubt in a vain attempt to block out my snoring. Sucker! He'll never learn that ya can't block out the sound of me asleep. Anyway, the other CASA members soon woke too, and after a quick chat, mainly about how Dave managed to get his pants half off during the night, we were up and about and preparing for the day ahead.

The shower was used by the members and a quick cup of tea was consumed. While all this was going on, other activities happened such as packing for the day ahead, and trying to put JP's room back into the state it was before we arrived. I also had a game of Pro Evolution with JP's superstar team. I won 5-1 so I was happy for the day anyway. Once we were all ready, we headed to town for grub. Ryan's bistro provided the breakfast and what a breakfast it was. I had a massive feed, toast and tea. Dave was absent due to his decision to eat a breakfast roll instead of a good proper fry up. Not to worry, I'm sure he enjoyed it.

After the grub, we sped back to JP's for his phone and then we hit the road for Kilkenny. JP provided the music in the form of the Beatles. I must admit that I wasn't very impressed with some of the songs, but JP and Dave argueing over Lennon and McCartney more than made up for some of the tripe on the radio. The journey itself was largely unimpressive, apart from the stop off in a small village so that Pearson could get his picture taken beside a roadsign. Apparently he invaded this little village and renamed it after himself - Paulstown. The bastard. Once we were back on the road, we soon hit Kilkenny. I drove around the city for a short while to show it to Pearson mainly. He'd never been there before so its good for him to see these new places. I don't know if Dave was there before or not, and I don't think he was too interested in the place. His mind was on stones.

So we headed off for our stone to Dunmore caves - destination for our Kilkenny stone. I had an idea where the place was but I wasn't sure. Luckily the signposts were spot on and we arrived safely. Unfortunately, the stupid cave was closed. I couldn't believe it. We were fast running out of time to collect 3 stones. Left with no choice though but to wait for the caves to reopen, we headed back to Kilkenny so Dave could get some grub. JP joined him but as I was afraid of Dave messing my new car, I made them eat outside. They weren't impressed.

Back to the cave we headed for the 2 o clock opening. We handed over the massive fee of €2.90 and then sat down to wait for a video of the place to be shown. It was at this stage that it was decided to scrap the plans for the Kildare stone. We'd conquer that county another day. Cancelling the stone was a great idea as it gave us more time to enjoy Kilkenny and later Laois, plus we hadn't a clue how to get to our Kildare stone anyway. That CASA trip is for another day.

After a 15 minute video about the cave, during which I was checking out the cute Polish girl, we all headed off down into the cave. The tour guide was an English dude, he seemed to know a good bit about the cave. He showed us a few different formations made from water and calcium, stalagmites and stalagtites, and a place where women and children were murdered by vikings a long long time ago. The history of the place was quite interesting I thought. The people who lived in the area many years ago used the cave as a hideout from bad vikings. They were caught and killed, but thats no surprise. As he was talking, the Polish bird had managed to find her way over beside me so I kept an eye on her while listening to the guide.

After a brief tour, that lasted no longer than 20 minutes, he turned off the lights to show us how dark it is inside the cave. Man it was very dark. I dunno how the people got into the place so long ago before the lights were put in. Dave thinks I touched him when the place was dark, but that wasn't me. If I was gonna touch anyone in that moment it certainly wouldn't be Dave. Remember I had a fit foreign chick within shooting distance. Anyway, once the lights were back on, the guide told us to go ramble around for a look ourselves. We all headed for the deepest part of the cave and it was there we decided to collect our stone. We were surrounded by fellow tourists so it took us a while to collect and dance with our stones. After that, it was time to climb out of the caves. For some reason I decided to try race up the 700+ steps. I was totally wrecked once at the top, and all I wanted to do was collapse and sleep. Instead I sat in the car and waited for JP to finish off a fag and then we were on our way to my home county for the Laois stone.

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