Sendero Group Travel Blog

The taxi ride From the hotel to the Dublin Heuston station went almost smoothly.

I was in a taxi with Rich and Valorie and we had some fun talking about guide dog names and the interesting responses they may trigger. Rich had GPS running and checked with the driver how accurate its information was. The driver was impressed and wished he had it in the car.

We all got on the train all right although our respectable fellow groupies who got the luggage on the train (like our strong man Dave!) managed to jump on just in time.

Margaret tried GPS on the train and it managed to track satellites so she gave us an update every once in a while - place, speed and altitude. At some point the speed was up to 88 mph.

Then there was this terrifying announcement: no toilets on this train! Interesting thought when you know you'll be on that train for over 2.5 hours! Fortunately some more linguistic group members set us straight: the message actually was "there are no trolleys on this train." Sigh of relief.

Rich got an email from the people he demoed the GPS to last Saturday in Dublin. The people wrote they were impressed with GPS.

Some of us learnt the hard way that smoking apparently is not prohibited on trains in Ireland although it is prohibited in all other public places. A few people stayed in a different car in the train but some fled back to the group before they were smoked out.

Betsy made Charles contact Mike via the radio (or so the story goes) when we stopped at a station to tell him we had all gotten off the train; where was he? I would have loved to share his reaction with you all but I didn't catch it so I guess I can't.

Once everyone dropped their things off at the guesthouse we went out to explore Cork. Some stopped at a place to have a sandwich but I was on Mike's team and he took us on an adventure walk through the city, right through industrial Cork, through the mud - everything to follow the leader, right? *smiles*

Our team ended up in this place called Raven's bar and had a drink there. Via the radio that connects our groups Charles gave another group a nice little geocache challenge (our team being the live geocache); he gave them latitude and longitude information and sure enough they found us! Well-done group! As a reward they got the opportunity to have a drink as well.

Later eleven of us had dinner and when the subject of carrying cases and straps came up Margaret confessed that she could not take both the Braillenote GPS and Her purse. Even though she and her purse are normally inseparable, the BrailleNote GPS prevailed and the purse was left at the hotel. Promise not to tell anyone, it's painful enough for the poor little purse as it is.

OK, let's have one more little story before we go to bed, (except for Mike of course). Those of you who use BrailleNote GPS know that you'd have to have the BrailleNote case open to use it (otherwise it's kind of hard to give the right commands). Very helpful people may come up to you to warn you of the fact that the case is open. One of the people in our group was stopped by a lady in the street and she told him his zipper was open. He reaches for the obvious place and she says: "no, not that one, the one on your black bag!"

Well, good night everyone and sweet dreams!

Ilona Wellman from the Netherlands.