Wicklow Day Two - Less Easy

The day started with an overview on a map that made all the distances seem manageable. The map, of course, is flat, so it left out an important detail.

I've learned that when the Irish say "walk", they mean any or all of "walk", "hike" and "climb". Especially climb.

We climbed up out of the valley where we'd spent the night.

And then kept climbing. And climbing. Up a rise so steep and so long we had to wonder if we'd been lied to. When Kevin, our guide, said "this is all the climbing," I said, "I don't believe you."

After five hours of climbing, we ate lunch on soft moss and bracken under towering Scots pines, then gratefully started our way down to Glendalough. We checked into our hotel and met a man who told us all about the Monastic City built around the church-sponsored propaganda featuring St. Kevin. 

Tomorrow we're climbing some more, up another mountain, because that's how you "walk" in Ireland.

Thanks for reading!

Karen

That's 1,000 years of peat self-composted in a seam
underneath the forest floor, densely black, intensely
carbon-rich and, until recently (and soon to be again)
burned as fuel in Ireland.