Day 0 – Planning & Prepping

Preparation day – or should I say preparation week/month – began after both our graduations were over. My boyfriend loves maps, I personally don’t see the big deal with them. He is clearly just sooo last century. Anyway, he decided we would do this trip without the use of a GPS. So off we went, well off he went to Easons (I think) and picked himself up a lovely Ireland road map. It was very weird, one day in L’derry, it rained, so out came the map and his finest black sharpie. (Fun fact: He loves to order everything off the internet, even single pencils, pens, rubbers.)

He said we could take turns to mark the route on our map, but I could feel these burning holes starting to emerge on the back of my neck. To save him from freaking out from my pen slightly slipping, I kindly decided to let him complete it. What a masterpiece it is.

Once we had the route drawn up, we worked out journey times between each place and divided the journey into 7 fun- filled days. I bet you can’t wait to see what’s in store….

On the topic of stores, we headed off to one to get some new plastic cups, plates, cutlery etc. We decided to go to ‘the range’ where we also came across a trangia. Bloody brilliant.

There was me thinking I was in for a week of relaxation, spending a night or two in some luxury hotels across Ireland. He obviously had a different idea. One more in the line of Duke of Edinburgh or Bear Grylls. (Quote “I basically am Bear Grylls”) Not too sure about that though.

Last night, the night before we hit the road, we decided to put our tent up, making sure its was 1. Waterproof 2. Clean. Yup it was waterproof, but when we popped it up, you’ll never guess what was in the tent. A bag of crisps, CRISPS! A green bag of man sized McCoy’s. Everyone who knows me will understand…I absolutely hate crisps. They are my biggest fear. Apart from Doritos or hot and spicy Pringles on holidays. Before you lot say “but they are crisps”, they aren’t, they are corn snacks, and for a more detailed explanation to my theory, just ask! Anyway, the tent had to be cleaned & bleached if I was to be sleeping anywhere near it. My boyfriend obviously complained about this, but to be fair, he is lucky I didn’t send him to Halfords or Argos to buy a new one. Now, before I throw up, let’s finish todays blog.

All that was really left to do after we got the essentials organised and packed, was to pack our own clothes. I packed the things normal people would take camping, leggings, jumpers, t-shirts, underwear, pjs, swim gear etc. My boyfriend on the other hand, made sure he had packed his compass, a selection of hats and fleeces, and one of those disgusting cloth neck warmers which had huskies on it. Maybe he’ll lose it or it will accidentally fall into a fire or off a cliff at some point over the week….

Once we had completed the 4P’s, Planning, Packing, Prettifying and Plenty of sleep (I made that up myself – pure genius), we hit the road with our 57hr playlist, fresh faced and bushy tailed. Woop woop, Ireland here we come.