Yesterday we checked out of Gogarty’s around 10 and headed away from Ballycroneen towards Newgrange and the fantastic tombs thereabouts. We visited the tombs at Knowl and Newgrange and they were spectacular. After a fine lunch in the cafe at the visitor’s center we loaded our 8 happy campers into the Land Cruiser and headed towards Cashel Rock (or is it Rock of Cashel?). Drive, drive, drive. Around 5:30 PM we checked the hours for Cashel and learned that they generally close at 6:15 PM. The Tom-Tom navigation suggested we’d arrive at… 6:15 PM. Doh!
We kept at it and at various times the GPS suggested we might arrive as early as 6:13. 2 minutes to tour! When we finally arrived we wasted a few minutes driving around town as the GPS was navigating to Cashel city center rather than the Rock. We shortly realized that and then started following the signs to the Rock. Duh!
As we approached the Rock and thought about parking Kristin pressed that we should drive right up the hill and see if it was open, rather than parking below and walking. Done. A posted sign said hours were until 7, cool! I parked briefly in the handicapped spot at the top and dropped the others off. As I started to back the car down the hill I heard screams and hit the brakes. We had made it just in time and the staff said park in the up-top spot right away as they were closing and I wouldn’t have time to tour if I parked below and walked back up. Sweet providence. They let us in!
After a short tour we walked down to town for refreshments, a few hundred meters. Not to be. A few pubs were closed and the 1 we found open was too smoky for JJ and Alex. We crossed the street to visit the pizza place with ice cream but it turns out the sign that had caught my eye had an arrow pointing in the direction we had just come from indicating the shop was actually 200 m that way. We took the message and loaded up to leave knowing we had a few Nutella sandwiches left in the car from the trip up to Dublin.
Roughly 90 minutes later we arrived back in Ballycroneen and Catia made some awesome Squid Ink pasta with olive oil, garlic and red peppers. Meanwhile we installed Android to the Powers touchpad (Bruce helped a lot since he had done the same with his TP recently).
A full day to be sure.
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