By Tarynne

Monday, July 22, 2013

We decided to spend some time exploring the outskirts of the county we are currently residing in, so we headed to Glendalough, which is only about 50km east of our current home.

Once we were dropped at Glendalough we decided to take the Pink AND white route – so that’s a 9.7km, 3.5hour hike.

The trail ascends steeply up by the Poulanass Waterfall before joining a boardwalk. More than 600 wooden steps lead you to a viewing point overlooking the Upper Lake. The boardwalk skirts the top of the cliffs before descending through blanket bog and heath into the picturesque Glenealo Valley, home to a large herd of deer. A rough track then leads you back down into Glendalough Valley.

Thank you Wikipedia.

So anyways, we had a great day exploring  Glednalough (so much that we completely missed the waterfall) and by 5 p.m. we decided we were ready to walk another couple kms to Laragh to The Wicklow Heather Restaurant.

Tuesday July 23rd, 2013

We were up early and served the best homemade coffee ever – thank you GOD for George Clooney Nespresso (well, let’s be real, and just George Clooney).

After several hours of round-about plans and what seemed like impossible sewing of misaligned plans and people with cars going all the opposite directions, we decided we would hitchhike from Glendalough to Hollywood, a small village in Wicklow where we could hang at The Hollywood Inn until someone could pick us up and take us back home.

Easy, right?

We were dropped off in Glendalough in a car park. We had about 5 minutes of combined patience before it started to piss rain and we collectively decided this was a dumb idea to stand around waiting for a miracle, so we decided we would rather start marching instead of moseying around feeling sorry for ourselves and we would rather start walking closer to home.

So we started walking.

And we walked for four and a half hours longer.

The walk itself isn’t all that bad. Theres rolling wheat and grass fields and the occasional sheep that will surprise you, but walking along a highway with hundreds of empty cars passing by rejecting our outstretched thumbs was not exactly what we had planned.

Incase you are wondering, you CANNOT HITCHHIKE IN IRELAND

(James taking pee breaks shoulder-side probably didn’t help).

37km later we arrived at Hollywood. That’s 27km plus 10kms of exaggerated ‘We’re over this now’.

Well, Feckit.

Eventually by 5p.m. we made it home…