Clear as Mud

Day 30
I was up with Michele to head into Dublin's city center. I was going on a day tour of the Wicklow mountains that both Michele and Rory had highly recommended.

The tour guide, John, was pretty funny. The only problem was that he kept using the same jokes over and over. At the end of each explanation he would say that it was clear as mud.

The Wicklows aren't too far from Dublin and make a great day trip. Unfortunately it was raining a bit today making it more difficult to get out of the bus and really enjoy the scenery. The rain stopped when we pulled over to check out some sheep.

We drove past the Guinness estate. It was massive and they allowed people to explore it on several marked paths. There was one lake that was sort of shaped like a pint glass. The water in all the lakes in the area looks very dark due to the large amount of bogs that it runs through first. To make the lake look even more like a pint white sand was brought in. A commercial was later filmed here.

Due to the intermittent rain we only had about 15 minutes to explore the ruins of St. Kevin's monastery. There was a tower that the monks had used to protect themselves from the vikings, much like the one I had seen in Kilkenny. The ruins were beautiful. One of the buildings still had its stone roof and was known for its fabulous acoustics. The surrounding cemetery was still active. The older stones slanted every which way. One of the several Celtic crosses is thought to be over St. Andrews remains. All of this is located in the area known as the Glendalough Valley.

We had a quick lunch in a town called Avoca. The whole thing is only about the length of one New York City avenue. Avoca is also known as the place where I finally found a pharmacy and could pick up some allergy meds. Ok, so Avoca is basically known for nothing, however it is really cute.

The last stop of the day was at a place called the meeting of the waters. Two small streams meet here to form one slightly larger stream. It's quite beautiful. Thomas Moore wrote about it in his poem “Meeting of the Waters.”

“There is not in this wide world a valley so sweet As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet! Oh the last rays of feeling and life must depart Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart”

The allergy meds I had taken soon knocked me out and I was fortunate to sleep though most of Dublin's rush hour traffic. That night Rory, Michele and me played Wii for a while. After they had gone to sleep I spent some time researching and planning a few more weeks of my trip. I ended up going to bed quite early.