Ireland road trip – Day 3

O’Riada’s Pub, Kilkenny

Kilkenny, Ireland – Kilkenny is a great town. It had an upbeat, lively feel to it, helped in part by the number of pubs in the town. One for every 300 inhabitants apparently.

After arriving in the town the previous afternoon, we walked around a bit before our thirst got the better of us and we ended up at a somewhat touristy pub with a live band playing semi-traditional Irish music.

You could tell it was packed with tourists even from the outside as you could hear the swish of Goretex rain jackets and the squeak of brand new hiking boots.

We got talking to two blokes who were a great double act. The first thing Willie, the shorter of the two, asked me was where I was from.

“Australia,” I replied.
“Good,” he said with relish, “we hate the English!” And he threw his arm around my shoulders and steered me to the bar so he could buy us a drink.

Willie and his mate Derek were great value. They were passionate about their country, saddened about its past and optimistic about its future – representative I thought about the Irish as a whole.

Kilkenny was our last destinition in what had become a too-short visit to Ireland. But we certainly made the most of our time in town. I tasted perhaps the best beer in my whole life, a pint of fresh Kilkenny at Mike the Millers pub.

We took a guided tour of Kilkenny castle, which guards the town from its position high on the hill overlooking the river.

And we spent hours walking through the maze of alley ways, past olde pubs, around frightening gothic churches – all that make this place so special.

Ireland road trip – Day 2

Near Annestown, County Waterford

County Kilkenny, Ireland – After a hearty Irish breakfast of bacon, sausages, eggs, grilled tomatoes and homemade bread, Jacq and I squeezed ourselves into the hatchback for another day on Ireland’s roads.

Our route took us south east to the coast at Arklow. Here we found a gorgeous stone harbour with sailing boats sheltering from the howling wind and high seas.

A quick spell on the motorway got us safely from Wexford to Waterford in the south east corner and then we found the coast again at Dunmore East, another delightfully historic fishing town with a harbour out front and thatched roof cottages along the main street.

Like Wicklow, the south coast was another highlight of the trip. The coast road took us high along the cliffs and then down steep hills to the sandy beaches below. Just past Annestown we spied a tiny, isolated anchorage with boat ramp. A few boats crowded into the lee of the harbour walls. It was one of the prettiest places I had visited.

It was soon after Annestown that we turned north and set the compass for Kilkenny, our destination for the night. We had wanted to go all the way along the coast to Dungarvan, or even Cork, but our progress on the curvy Irish roads was slower than I had expected.

We had probably only covered 80 or 100 kilometres but with stops for photos and lunch it had taken us well into the afternoon.

Jacq was doing an admirable job of navigating too. Although she did take a little while to warm up to it. On the first day, as I was driving us down the motorway at 120kph, holding the steering wheel with white knuckles while trying to work out what the road signs said and which exit we should take, I asked Jacq anxiously “what did that one say? Should we take it?”

“Oh, maybe I should start paying attention,” she said leisurely before reaching down to pick up the discarded map from the floor.

And it was the prevalence of place names starting with Glen or Bally or Kil that had her stumped. She often couldn’t recall the name of the town where we had been, or for that matter, where we were going. Only that it began with a Kil something. Kildare? Killarney? Kinsale? Kilkenny?

Ireland road trip – Day 1

Avoca, County Wicklow

County Wicklow, Ireland – Sometimes you get a real sense about a country as soon as you arrive. Like when the heat and smell hits you like a wet punch in Bangkok. Or you see the the stark trees and brown houses of London in winter.

Ireland wasn’t like that. Bombing down the M50 motorway past Dublin in our little green rental car felt like driving on any city highway in Australia. Generic roadside shrubs. Wide lanes, crazy drivers.

But just a few kays from the city outskirts it changed. We started the ascent into the Wicklow Mountains to the south of Dublin and almost immediately found ourselves on narrow country lanes. Ancient stone walls surrounded us either side, the trees arched over in a rich green canopy, the hills rolled away into the distance.

Wicklow was a highlight of our flying three day visit to Ireland. Unsure how far we had to travel to reach our accomodation that night, I put my foot down and zoomed past many of the sights I now realise we should have stopped at. We saw black-brown hill sides scored from centuries of peat farming. Alpine flowers in white and yellow swayed in the breeze on long, lonely stretches of road out on the top of the mountains.

On the otherside we came down into Glendalough (pronounced Glenda-lock), a valley of twin lakes that was the site of a monastery built in the eight century. Just before the rain set in for the afternoon we toured the ruins and I composed a couple of photos of the famous 110 foot-high round tower, built about 1000 years ago. The valley, the lakes and the stone buildings all combined to make Glendalough quite a special, picturesque area and I got a real sense that we really were in Ireland now.

The rain continued for most of the afternoon but we didn’t mind so much as it seemed to add an authentic edge to our Irish holiday. We sped through the winding roads, me occassionally wrenching the wheel to the left when surprised by an oncoming car. The roads really were narrow and it seemed that having two wheels on the roadside vegetation was the only way to pass by safely. Well, ‘safely’ in terms of avoiding a head on collision.

It was at Avoca, population 500-odd, that Jacq and I experienced a B&B for the first time. We were rapt with the hospitality that Jackie at Ashdene provided during our night there. Within minutes of arriving we found ourselves in her sitting room, drinking tea from a china cup balanced on a saucer on my knee. It was very civilised. And Jackie didn’t seem to mind that I as clashing rather badly with her tasteful furnishings with me in my torn jeans, trucker cap and home boy-style rain jacket.

With the rain and polar-like temperatures getting worse, there was nothing for it but to head down the hill to the pub. Fitzgeralds offered a warm atmosphere and cold(ish) beers. Like all good Irish pubs, it was not just a drinking house but a loungeroom for the locals to meet and have a chat.

But geez it was small. Standing at the bar waiting to order my first ever Guiness the punters could barely squueze past me and my camera bag. Bloody tourists eh?