Dublin, Ireland August/September 2004 diary
08 September 2004

Having never been to Ireland before, I wasn't sure what to expect. It was gorgeous! We stayed at a camp site in Rush right next to the beach, just north of Dublin, and it was a treasure, a really peaceful place, almost continental.

Glendalough and the Wicklow Mountains National Park proved to be the find of the week. We went to Glendalough on the Sunday and had a gorgeous walk up from there. Although we had brilliant sunshine, we had a few short bouts of rain, which resulted in a number of beautiful rainbows, captured for the gallery! The walk at the top of the hill was made difficult by the wind, but that didn't spoil the views as we came back down on part of the Wicklow Way and ended with an evening dinner in a nice pub in Laragh.

On the Monday we visited Ireland's national ecological centre, Sonaitre, just outside of Bettystown. The children all had a great time wandering around and playing in the adventure playground and later in the small park! This was our first Seth Walks Family event. We will be setting an outline now for some of the Seth Walks events to be for families, and so those that are will be presented as such to allow you all to choose which types of events you'd prefer to join up with, either the general events attended by adults, or the special family ones.

On the Tuesday we went back to Glendalough and spent a couple of hours at the lake where the children enjoyed paddling. Then a few of us walked a different route again to the left of Glendalough, which came back down on the beginning of the route we had walked on the Sunday. I was very taken by Ireland, and would thoroughly enjoy another visit.