Not to be deterred by those thoughts, the car was pointed in the direction of Kilkenny and it was smooth sailing most of the way. Suddenly it got cloudy and started raining. Well, having done a little homework on what was in the area, a visit to the Dunmore Cave seemed like a good place to get out of the rain. So, we took the third exit from the roundabout instead of the first and soon found ourselves at the visitor centre.
Beginning with a nice educational video, having obtained senior rate tickets without even asking (should we have been offended or just grateful?), we paid little notice to the verbal notification that there were in excess of 700 steps. Well, that's going and coming back. Guess which way meant climbing up. Yep!
So down we went into the largest cave in Ireland and were met by Eamer, who for a lack of crowds, essentially became our private guide. There is something to be said for winter visits to Ireland and the lack of crowds.
I can't begin to remember every detail so numbers might be a bit off. It seems that in 978 there might have been a massacre. Bodies of women and children were found in one part of the cave. Were they trying to hide from the Vikings? Were they kidnapped and housed there? How about DNA examination of the bones? Well it seems the bones made a trip to Dublin and one way or another, got lost. They are probably around but mixed in with other similar 'artifacts' and it is not on anyone's radar to make figuring it out a priority.
We saw one lone bat flying around. The cave is home to roughly 1000 bats during the winter. Fortunately they prefer an area that's quite remote and hard to access and they mostly stay there just hanging around upside down. When an interior passage was pointed out, I wondered what skinny two year old was put through and told to go exploring and count bats. I was told that the passage is bigger than it looks, but simply requires crawling for a forgotten number of yards (50?) on hands and knees. Gee, sure wish that had been me. NOT.Eventually we successfully made the exit climb and I swear my halo was glowing from the accomplishment. So, where to next? It was equidistant to Castlecomer where I remembered a nice cafe from last year, and Kilkenny and those narrow streets.
OK - Wicklow Gap it is, via Castlecomer, after a nice lunch at The Coffee House Cafe. I have been over the Wicklow Gap and the Sally Gap - its neighbour - and in my experience, once at the top, it was a lovely drive down the other side to Glendalough, another favourite destination. So, we set the Google Maps GPS for Wicklow Gap. Bad decision.
The drive took us over a lovely winding road, a long bridge and then on to some lovely twisting boreens. Those are roads so narrow and little used that grass grows in the middle. Nice! Fortunately we encountered only one car going the other way. In the middle of nowhere the GPS app told us we had arrived at our destination. What? No road intersecting the one from Sally Gap? No sign pointing to Glendalough? We had done a loop which eventually took us back to the town of Blessington, which we'd passed through and from where we made the turn off to the gap.
I'm not sure where I lodge a complaint that there should only be one Wicklow Gap. We did see an evergreen with Christmas decorations, as I had seen last year at Sally Gap. Who goes there with shiny coloured decorations and hangs them on a tree that only lost tourists will ever see? Never mind - it did look kind of festive and cute. We didn't stop - road was too narrow and someone could have been headed our way.
From Blessington we followed instructions and took the N81. With a slight side trip that took us off and then back on the N81, for reasons not apparent, we drove through Tullow and back to the N80 which goes right through Bunclody. Now home and enjoying a cup of tea, we're in for the evening.
Tomorrow there will be an early start as we want to be in Belfast for noon. Somewhere en route I want to exchange my old English pounds, which were perfectly good in Sheffield last year, for new English pounds which is all that is accepted now. I found out at Heathrow that I was in possession of antique bills and change. Luckily when I paid for lunch I did have among the paper and coins, enough that was acceptable. Northern Ireland uses pounds not euros, so somewhere along the way once we've crossed the border, a bank will have to be visited.
It's unlikely there will be a post until Monday night. I'm not taking the laptop along and the thought of typing on my phone or tablet is not appealing.
So I shall dig up a couple of pictures from today and sign off until next week.
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