Kikenny Castle

Early morning May Day run in to the town and back, shower then whilst eating brekkie we watched the ravens and robins coming down very close to the van to eat the bread I had put out for them. Very delightful.
We drove in to the town to visit Kilkenny castle. Nice change to see a castle that isn’t derelict. Although it’s over 800 years old, it has been restored to a Victorian period. Started to walk the grounds but it started to rain so we left and wandered the high street picking up a tshirt souvenir from the pub we’d been to the night before then headed onwards slowly weaving our way back to Dublin.
We picked a route that went through the Wicklow Mountains, the road is an old military road that takes you through a vast rural, wilderness of scrubland where ever you look you can’t see anything man made (apart from the road). It was amazing and yet another diverse scenery and experience. We eventually arrived at the south of Dublin at a sandy cove, a lovely scenic end of Dublin where lots of locals were swimming. There’s an area called Forty Foot (no one knows why) but it’s a 250 year old swimming/changing point into the clear waters of the Irish Sea. We didn’t dip this time but maybe another day… was quite busy especially as it was sunny again - did I say how very lucky we’ve been?! We even saw an elderly man walk out of his house across the road to the cove in just his swimmers, goggles and hat! Good for him. As we were walking we also spotted some seals in the sea and a heron wading in the shallow waters.
We walked up to the high street in my last search of oysters/Guinness. Been keeping an eye all round the island but not had the opportunity, Dublin is usually good for these. Found a lovely restaurant doing the oysters so was very happy though no Tabasco sauce, shame. They were great though plus we also ate dinner there too. Was a lovely last meal in Ireland.
We drove on to our stopover where we had stayed when we first arrived. Another campervan pulled up next to us so we chatted to them for a bit. They are from Denmark or Norway, we couldn’t work out but they are taking a year or so out to travel Europe. They’d already done (wet) Cornwall for a month and planning on doing Ireland for a month then back around Britain before heading in to mainland Europe. Sounds brilliant.
Watched the last episode of MAFS, last bit of drama in our lives then to bed listening to the rain.Read more