/life/ireland/Wicklow, Cavan, Leitrim
This weekend Clare and I went traveling around Cavan and Leitrim, two counties of Ireland. We went canoeing twice. I've long known that what the Irish call a "canoe" is not what I call a canoe; it's any of a number of canoe- and kayak-like one and two person vessels. A "proper" canoe is, delightfully, referred to as a "Canadian-style" canoe.
The first day's canoeing was on a flat-topped thing with padded seats. You sat with legs straight out in front of you, and used a kayaking paddle. Since you're essentially sitting on top of a closed tapered raft, it's cleverly called a "sit-on-top. It was pretty stable, and sleak and fast, but I found the position incredibly uncomfortable. We were out perhaps two hours, and visited a couple of islands. The lake was cold, so I got to wear a wetsuit for the first time in my life.
We also went to see the Marble Arch caves and took lots of photos there. They had some pretty cool formations.
We crossed the border into County Fermanagh, part of Northern Ireland and thus the UK, and then crossed back to Cavan, back into Fermanagh and back once more, all without documentation. Good thing there's no border controls.
Both of the B&B's we stayed in were taking part in the EU Flower Eco-Label program. There aren't very many in Ireland, but we were glad to know that the same kind of efforts that we make at home were being made when we were traveling. The standards include things like tracking and control of chemicals used, pervasive use of compact fluorescent bulbs, and support of alternative transport. The second one was a lovely restored old home, and was run by a fairly young family. I liked that they didn't make their kids invisible, though they were far from in the way or anything. They had a hot tub — another thing I learned was distinctly Canadian — which we used...I haven't been in a hottob in a long time. The next morning We were loaned bikes for free to take a look around the countryside, and then a real "Canadian style" canoe to go out on the lake. There was a small crannog and we went through some reeds and stuff. Was nice to be out in a real canoe.
We then went and got some pizza for lunch and off to Lough Key Forest Park. Our map showed a nice-looking walk through there. However, there were far more trails on the ground than on our map, so we ended up getting a bit lost. On a tiny island, with a single bridge to access it. We went around twice, before finally understanding how we kept coming across the same bridge.
That park was right on the N4; we basically pulled out and immediately saw signs for Dublin, which was fairly funny given how much we'd been traveling around finding very obscure places in Ireland, and suddenly we saw a sign for home.
All around an excellent Easter weekend. Tonight we went out to Clare's mom's place for dinner, and I saw the house-in-progress that Clare did the architectural design and much of the project management for.
There's also new photos up from Paddy's Day.
