This morning we set off again ready to brave the horrors of navigation in Dublin city. Oddly, Dublin is the first city or town we have yet been to with streets more then three centimeters wide and it is a city of one-way streets. This is an infuriating combination, plus Elizabeth Wooten-Bassett seems to not know that many of these streets are one-way. In any case, we did eventually make it out alive.
From here it was the road, a long few days of driving lay ahead with multiple stops and destinations.
The first of these was Bu Na Bonnie (Newgrange) a 5,000 year old burial mound. But it is more then a burial mound. It is a mound in which cremated human remains were found . Who knows what it was for, but in any case, it is magical. I cannot describe how breathtaking this place is. From the outside it does not look so special, just a mound of grass with a stone wall at one side. The stonewall part has been reconstructed out of the original stone that was found collapsed in the 60s’. Now this is something that I am unsure should be done, due to the interpretation of the construction. But that was all forgotten the second I entered. It is a stone construction that forms a sort of cave with a tunnel leading to it. The central cavern is as it was 5,000 years ago. The construction was so well built that it has remained in tact and entirely waterproof since then.
The tunnel has above it, a light box. A small opening above the door that lines up precisely with the solstice sunrise. The light streams in, illuminating the inner sanctum. Maybe it sounds sappy but I could really feel the magic here. A real connection to the earth and history and an astonishing agelessness.
The stone inside has a fair amount of graffiti on it, which seems quite appalling but is softened by the fact that some of the graffiti is dated. One stood out to me, a name, A M McAlroy, 1822. I wonder who he was. (I assume it was a he, might have been a she).
We managed a great success here by the time of our arrival, everywhere tells you that the place opens at 9:30am and you have to queue up at the visitors center and catch busses to the site and be herded in in droves. But Raina and her incredible anal and obsessive research managed to work out that it is in fact the mound itself that opens at 9:30 and busses begin at 9. So most people planning to be early rock up at half past, we and only two others were there at 8.30am and so only four people and the guide were in our group, the next bus in had 30 people. Nice dodge, thank you mother. :D
A drive up the very pretty Atrim coast. Famous for its beautiful beaches and coastal views followed. Views I will give it but as for beaches - pfft ptfffft lol, pebbely, rocky and cold is expected but what you don’t see on the calendars is the stench. I think it is because of the seaweed that washes up on the beach and then rots. But the beaches were all putrid smelling, disgusting rank and best avoided. And of course castles.
Next we hit up the Giant’s causeway. A remarkable geological phenomenon, something I still struggle to believe is natural and not man made. I think what happened was volcanic rock rose at a high rate and temperature from deep in the earth. Once it came into contact with the oxygen and cold ocean it cooled quickly, solidified and cracked like glass. It cracked in a remarkable geometric and even honeycomb pattern and bits rose higher then others with dead flat tops.
The more fun legend version of the creation of the Giant’s Causeway is that the Giant who lived there was fighting with a giant on a neighboring island (Scotland), throwing rocks at him and built the causeway (which looks remarkably like a staircase) so as to get closer to his target and throw stones more easily.
We spent the evening in a lovely B&B with a crack-a-lacking view and a pub for dinner with mussels and Guinness.
Also, it was cold...
No comments:
Post a Comment