Wicklow Mountains, Glendalough and Kilkenny
8am-5:30pm
Friday 17th September
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Wow, what a day! just got back from my tour with the paddywagon group, was definatley worth the €23

I had to get up (early) at 7am (ohh, boo hoo!!) and walk to Suffolk St tourist office where the bus came and picked us up..there was only 6 people on the tour and we all made freinds and got talking and walking around together...the bus driver was realy nice and he was pretty good as a tour guide, told us where we were going and what we were driving past etc etc (which is umm, i guess what tour guides have to do...hmm)

ANYWAY...drove to the beautiful Wicklow Mountains and had a fantastic view of the beautiful Irish scenery in the South, then drove up to Glendalough, 'valley of the 2 lakes' which was established by St Kevin in the 6th century, vikings would attack but this place flourished for 600 years, however, its demise was set once the english forces set in in 1398 but it still functioned as a monastic centre for a while after.

We went through the 'gatehouse' the remains of the original entrance to Glendalough, which was base camp apparently for the catholic hermit St Kevin who decided he wanted to leave the riches and wealth of his family and spend his life living by himself with one with nature in a cave in the mountains, no one knew he was there until he started having a huge following, he was a man of prayer and lived off praying in the cave for the rest of his life, sadly, it was after his death that his cathedral (which dates from the 12th C) became well known and people would come and pray, and at one time it was nearly 1000 people at a time who would come and pay their respects

We saw the 'round tower' which is 33m high and is one of the finest in Ireland. There is also a cemetery located here with amazing stone heads which are dated back many centuries. We saw a little oratory standing amongst the headstones, this was built in the 11th Century and is known as 'St Kevins Kitchen' the roof of this little Church is very interesting as it has been all built in stone! not sure how they kept it in place in those times and didnt cave in and it even stands solid today! very impressive sight, obviously, my camera got a good work out and was huffing and puffing all the way to the bus.

I found some history if you were interested, about St Kevin...well, this is more for me than for you geeks but hey...

St Kevin

He was born in 498, descendant of the royal house of Leinster, he chose to live as a hermit in a cave at Glendalough. He later founded a monastery here, and went to create a notable centre of learning devoted to the care of the sick and the copying and illumination of manuscripts. St Kevin attracted many disciples to Glendalough during his lifetime, but the monastery became more celebrated as a place of pilgrimage after his death in 618. They say he lived till the age of 120.

So we moved on to see one of the 2 famous lakes which the valley was named after, amazing little park with (thank God) no tourists at all, so we walked around a bit, got to know each other, talked about our travels and forgot when we were supposed to meet our bus driver and stood him up! hah ok, by only about 5-10mins so thats cool...

Kilkenny took us 1.5hrs to get there, never sit at the back of a bus when driving in Ireland, babam jan my head saw more of the ceiling of the bus than anything else...can i say one thing, Ireland is an amazing place!! so green, serene and beautiful, Kilkenny is one of the nice places, I saw Kilkenny Caslte and the people on the bus had to hold me back from jumping outside and running towards it! my first Ireland Castle!! I was excited, know what im sayin'?

We had 3 hrs to kill in Kilkenny...we hoped off the bus, I sorta wanted to go off by myself but everyone waited for me while I went to the toilet..nice...and I asked them what they wanted to do and out of everything they all wanted to go to the Kilkenny brewery! I was like, umm, sorry im going that-a-way to start my cameras aerobic workout at the castle...I parted with them, Penny, the girl from Prague decided to come with me, so i was cool with that, went to the Castle the whole time getting my camera ready, you know, egging it on, pumping it up getting it ready for its big workout and guess what was the first sentence that came out of the geeky looking man sitting behind the counter? "welcome, you cannot be taking any photos in the castle" I was like WHAT? no photos and he said NO PHOTOS and i nearly no photoed him! I was so pissed off! how could you make people pay and not let them take photos of a castle?? especially since it was ME?? hello, move outta the way Japanese Jazz coming through! well, i took my camera with me anyway, left my backpack in the cloack room to disguise the fact that I had my camera on me...

The tour was nice, they had renovated the whole castle...the Butler family had lived in this castle their whole lives, since the castle was built in the 13th C, it was later discovered that is was built on the remains of a pre-norman house. in 1391, the castle was bought by the 3rd Earl of Ireland - was lived in until 1935 when the castle became vacant and later in 1967 was sold to the restoration company for a whooooole £50! thats €70 basically this was done because the castle was getting worn out and they could not maintain it, so rather than losing it, he 'gave' it away to get restored and now the Office of Public Works owns and it and doesnt let Australian tourists take photos of it.

oh! another interesting fact, in those days, the heirs of the wealthy or royal families were made to wear skirts and dresses to stop them from being kidnapped! if i was their sister i wouldnt let them live it down!!! haha, id love to dress my bros in girls clothes and tell them its to stop them from being kidnapped *giggle giggle*

oh! also, the Butler family changed their name from Fitzwater, in those days, it was common to change your surname to suit the position you were in, James was an Earl and changed his surname because basically he wanted to!#

Castle was amazing, i took a couple of 'low key' photos, but not too many as there was a camera in every friggn' room! and anyway, i didnt want any photos of their stoopid castle *sulk* oh well, im over it now...we walked on to St Canices Cathedral and climbed the Bell tower...sheeeeeesh! 7 levels of step ladders all the way to the top! fheew, but what a view! saw all of Kilkenny (which really isnt that big) and went back to meet the paddywagon geeks to go back to Dubbers...

All in all, a fun day, but i think day trips like this can be arranged by youself, by train or coach whatever for cheaper, but it was nice relaxing and hey! made some freinds who im going to be meeting up for a drink with tonight...