Saturday, August 23, 2003 (Kilkenny - Republic of Ireland)
So much to do here. And off we go again, in some
direction or other. How many pubs does it take to make an Irish town? The cost
of camping in Ireland. One of the jewels of Irish history. Another toilet to add
to our collection.
Day 164. Having crammed quite a lot in today,
we have already lost sight of the fact that we only just arrived in Ireland the
other day. It was not a particularly restful night in Enniscorthy. As the kids
slowly but surely left the various and many pubs to head off home, every half an
hour or so, one would knock on the side of the van just as we were dozing off.
Being abruptly torn from deep sleep repeatedly starts to get on your nerves
after a while. I don’t know what time it was that we finally got to sleep
but I do remember feeling that I could use another couple of hours sleep once we
awoke this morning.
Still a little
aimless, we set off for some nearby historical monuments that were marked on our
road map. The first place we reached was called St. Mullins where a church ruin
along with a rather picturesque graveyard attached awaited us. A so-called High
Cross was also present in the church grounds along with the remains of what
looked like a mot. We stayed for a while before moving on to a somewhat
unpronounceable placed called Graiguenamanagh where an abbey was listed on the
map. The drive itself was through some extremely beautiful winding country lanes
with some breathtaking views across valleys and dales overlooking the winding
river Urrin. The small town was no less picturesque and we enjoyed wandering
around the town. The abbey was rather nice with a fantastic old hammer beam roof
but, alas, we could not find the stature of the Knight of Graiguenamanagh Abbey.
We think it was moved into the local
museum.
As we are noticing more and
more, every little town in Ireland seems to come complete with dozens of pubs
and taverns. We stopped in at one of them and sat down to a nice carvery meal.
It was a very good meal and even more so reasonably priced. On the way back to
the van from the tavern, we bumped into a little man on a bike wearing a high
visibility jacket. At first, I thought we were going to get an earful for
parking where we had but it turned out that he was some sort of tourist
information official that was tasked with bringing tourists into the town. He
spent a few minutes telling us what we could do and where we could go. We asked
where we could get access to the Internet (we felt somewhat obligated to provide
him with the opportunity to assist us somehow) and he happily pointed us in the
direction of the local public
library.
At €3 for thirty
minutes, the Internet access did not come cheaply. At this rate, we will be
spending precious little time at public library Internet terminals here in
Ireland but took the opportunity, nevertheless, to send an e-mail to a couple
that we met whilst diving in Sodwana Bay in South Africa. If memory serves, Ryan
and Siska live in Dublin and so we are hoping to get to see them sometime during
our visit.
After tending our Internet
chores, we left that place that could not be pronounced and set off for
Kilkenny. Just as we reached the small town, we noticed a camping ground and
inquired about parking there. As with all the camping grounds that we’ve
seen so far her in Ireland, it was going to cost us €15 per night for the
van plus two occupants (excluding electricity hook-up). Since this is clearly
the expected going rate, we’ve now resigned ourselves to having to fork
out this amount almost every night so we bit the bullet and settled in. Since
the town was literally just several hundred yards from the campsite, we broke
out the bikes and cycled into the town centre where Kilkenny Castle awaited
us.
It’s quite a large building
and still very much in tact. A park full of picnickers and families, out
enjoying a wonderful sunny day, extends a half a mile or so from one side of the
building and we cycled through it to get to the castle itself. We strolled
around the grounds for a while before locking up the bikes and going inside.
Kilkenny castle is very much a tourist attraction with guided tours leading the
pundits off every twenty minutes or so through the various restored rooms and
halls. Once again, our student ID cards netted us each a one year membership
into Dúchas, the Irish equivalent of English Heritage, for just €7,50
(I’m so glad we went to Cairo earlier this year). Our guided tour started
with a video presentation about the history of the castle and we were then lead
around by a nice young girl who explained various aspects of the castle and its
trimmings.
During the tour, we were
shown a rather large and peculiar looking toilet that was apparently the very
first flushing toilet of its day. Since we had to leave our bags and cameras in
the cloakroom, I was unable to add this to my collection of toilets from around
the world so I spoke with the tour guide at the end of the presentation to make
my case for grabbing a quick snap of it. This request went on up the chain of
command until we finally found someone who would allow the rather strange
request providing ‘it never
happened’.
Having leaned all we
were going to about the castle, we then walked outside and into the town itself.
Kilkenny is the quintessential, small, cosy, vibrant and lively Irish town.
Narrow streets hustled and bustled with lively people going about their
business. I’m starting to really feel like I’m experiencing Ireland
now.
Today was a long day but a good
one. I took advantage of the campsites various facilities, including washing
machine and dryer and we are now well and truly tucked in for the night. When we
joined Dúchas, we were issued with a book and map full of all the historic
buildings and attractions that we can now get into free of charge. This has
given some direction and purpose to the next few weeks and we will no longer be
just aimlessly wandering around the country. Instead, we will now be able to
structure our journey around the country and this should make things a little
easier for us.
Posted: Sat
- August 23, 2003 at 01:12 PM