Day 25: To Limerick

Today was planned as a drive down the Irish east coast before heading inland to see some ancient cairns and megaliths and heading on to Limerick. Except it poured rain for half of the drive, so the cairns and megaliths were skipped. Ireland’s weather turned against me for the first time 🙁

Coastal Towns

The first part of the day was along the east coast through a bunch of cute coastal towns and along beaches of varying degrees of niceness. Some of these were mainly just gravelly rock shores, and one was at low tide and stunk to high heaven. But it was a gorgeous morning for this part of the drive.

Reflections

At one point driving along the coast, the light lined up perfectly with the water and clouds so that you could see the clouds reflected on the water and it was SO COOL.

Wicklow Mountains

Before hanging a right and heading west towards Limerick, I decided to go explore a green spot on the map south of Dublin. The Wicklow Mountains National Park is cut down the middle by Old Military Road and you drive up into the mountains (well, tall hills) and then along across the top of the mountain plains. It was another great moment of feeling like you’re on the top of the world with everything spread out around and below you.

Glenealo Valley

As you reach the southern end of the national park, you drop down into the Glenealo Valley and the road hangs a sharp right and sends you up to the top of the valley before heading on to Limerick. There were no good places to pull over and grab a pic at the bottom of the valley unfortunately. The view from the bottom was much cooler, but the viewing area at the top of the valley included a stone bridge built over a trickling stream. It was great to just stand there and listen to the gently rushing water as I looked down into the greenery below.