On Tuesday, it is a miracle of miracles, for on this day, about 2.5 weeks after its initial issues, my apple watch is fully, completely dead. After plugging it in, success! It works!!!
Patience and google: it is how we save money on electronics that don’t need to be replaced
We have the most car-heavy day today, as we’re driving just over an hour round trip to Avoca, Ireland, which is home to the Avoca mill, where they hand weave and produce every wool product that they have in their stores or produce for clients. They even use all local Irish wool – which is really uncommon. Yes, textiles, yes! This is actually an exciting day, I promise.
To get there, we have to drive through the Wicklow mountains, which are beautiful, ancient, and rolling. Sheep are literally in the road, but not as aggressively as Iceland, where you always have three sheep (aka threep) chilling in the road, usually a mom and two babies. We just had to contend with the occasional sheep butt in the relatively narrow road. For a while, we had a bus escort. It was great because it barely fit on the street and we assumed it would just ram all oncoming traffic.
We stopped for pictures at a scenic overlook just on the other side of the gap. The wind is cold. I don’t know what I expected. It’s really gorgeous though, since it’s so clear today.
Midway between Avoca and our place is the Ballinastoe Woods, which (according to Google and Susan’s family) have a boardwalk you can meander on through the pine forest. It’s supposed to be beautiful. If you put Ballinastoe boardwalk into google, it looks easy to get to.
Well, Google is somewhat wrong and confusing (why do I trust it in Europe). There are a few parking spots with signs, but they’re all labeled with just “Ballinastoe” and do not mention a boardwalk anywhere. Great. We find a spot nearby-ish to park and I cram the car next to someone who left exactly one car width between them and the hill and I wiggle out of my door. Backing out and turning around will be exciting.
We try to get on the trail right by the car, but it looks like we’re going to be stolen by witches or something because it is dark and spooky and the pines absorb every little noise, and there is also no map. We nope on out of there and go up the hill to where we saw the biggest sign and the most people. Boardwalk, where are you?
We walk wayyy up the hill on the narrow road and get to the big sign and we choose to just wander on what looks most promising and most popular. I am grateful I have a hiking app on my phone, since this instills way more confidence in us (and I can’t read a map to save my life). If you are really into hiking, you can walk on miles and miles (kilometers and kilometers) of trails up here. It kind of looks like bog to us (blanket bog!), but we are mere boggy novices so what do we know?
After checking out the overlook, we descend into some pine forest, much younger than what we had seen near our car. Lo and behold, a boardwalk appears! The pines eventually tower over you and sunlight can barely filter through, except in a few places. This part feels much more magical, especially now that we know where we are going. If you wandered off the path, I’m not sure anyone would find you again.
After our short excursion, we have one more stop, for Susan has found a big ol’ rock with 4.6 stars on Google between here and Avoca. Mottee stone, sign me up! We drive past some big draft horses, farmland, get slightly mired behind a tractor, and at the end of a crappy (for Ireland) road, we find our parking for the rock. The rock is up a hill. The view are incredible and on a perfectly clear day, you can see all the way to Wales (I do not know this until afterwards). A+ rock indeed.
Finally, it’s time for the Avoca mill. We park in the tiny town and wind our way to the site of the original Avoca mill. It’s a quaint collection of buildings, complete with a cafe (time for linner!) and shop. They do tours of the mill and we are just in time to catch the very last one – which is basically a private tour for us!
It was started by a collective of local farmers in 1723, but gained in renown when three sisters took it over in the 1800s. One of the sisters was an accomplished botanist and they used her expertise in dyes to create products that really stood out. They quickly became known for their bright, unusual colors and patterns. The mill has been producing off and on-ish for about 300 years and you can find their products, which are almost entirely created in the mill itself, with the exception of finishing – this goes out to other places in Ireland and the UK.
You can watch all the master weavers at work, you learn how the hand looms are made, and then you also learn how they load and prepare the power looms, which can churn out work much faster than a hand loom (of course), though they take almost 2 days to line up the threads in the correct pattern before going onto the machine!
Of course, some scarves in the store happen to me. It was really interesting to see the folks who produce all of the woven goods – I got to say hi to the people who wove my scarf!
We get back just before dark, which is great because I don’t like driving on the bigger Irish roads after dark. The small ones with a million turns and hedges are way better, since you can see headlights coming from further away.
On our last morning, we decided to turbo-castle it before our 2:30pm flight. We chose Malahide Castle, which is very close to the airport. Since traffic sucks, we miss the 10 am tour, but this allows us to get coffee and peruse the Avoca store at Malahide Castle while we wait.
Much to my chagrin, this fancy castle dating back to the 1100s doesn’t allow you to bring your beverages inside, so I put it in a nearby bush and hope it’s still there when I come out. In hindsight, I could have asked the people at the desk inside to hold it for me, but where is the fun in that?
The tour takes you through rooms furnished in the 1400s, with ornate wooden carvings, gorgeous drawing rooms painted in Malahide Orange, and elaborate bedrooms. A lot of the original furnishings have been lost to time, but they’ve been slowly rebuilding their collection.
My favorite is the medieval dining hall, complete with a minstrel gallery and a haunted door up to the gallery, which is haunted by Puck, a minstrel who died of a broken heart. The castle is Very Haunted, with locals reporting sightings, and the staff coming into the castle every morning needing to straighten many paintings.
When I get out, I discover my tea is still there, albeit much cooler. A tea in the hand is worth one in the bush, as they say. I have no regrets.
I wish we’d had another hour to explore the gardens, because this place is huge. It’s off to return the rental car and depart Ireland for us! Dublin airport is just okay but it’s nice to clear customs before returning to the states, at least.
