Rathdrum Bonus Day

 Today is our bonus rest day in Rathdrum that we added to our walking tour, which turned out to be no rest day.  Daphne gave us our packet from Wicklow Tours, which included maps, itinerary, pickup and departure information for each day, B&B contacts, lots of information!  Each day we carried maps for the day and route information to our next stop. Today nothing on the itinerary except exploring Rathdrum.

Daphne suggested we walk to Avondale Forest Park, which is like a nature park with a huge walkway over the treetops.  Daphne did not mention there is a huge slide at the end when you reach the last viewing point on top!  It is a beautiful area, and fun to walk to raised boardwalk.  At the end I think it was 2Euro each to do the slide.  You get a sack which you sit on and go down Irelands longest slide, it is fast!  You can see how popular it is, they have signs for how long it is from each spot in the lineup.  Lots of fun.

Little coffee shop has not opened yet

Park Entrance

Little challenges set up for the kids on the walk, yes we had to try them

The walkway was high!

Walk to the viewpoint on top, and the slide down! THe slide was so fast.  Wendy was convinced by 4 children in line in front of us that she should do it.

Beautiful gardens

From here we found a trail that took us along the river and we came out at a lower part of Rathdrum.  We realize Rathdrum is much bigger that we thought.  We can see a viaduct in the distance, so walk here through some farmers fields and along the river, we are visited by the sheep and horses as well. There are lots of little trails down to the river, looks like a popular fishing spot.

Lots of walking again to get back to the old town.  Through a soccer field, get on the wrong track a couple of times through a woods walk that had lots of trails that weren’t well marked, come across couples twice out walking that set us straight.  Just outside town a couple was picking blackberries, told us to watch out for the bull in the field, great.  Also happen across the Famine cemetery which was very moving.

On our walk through the woods came across these in the fields

Neat bridge over the river

Famine Cemetery

Back in town and we decide to cancel our reservation for tonight.  The place did not look great, and decided to find a different pub (of the 3 we had to choose from!)  We lucked out and there is a band playing Irish Music live tonight.  So much fun, a good supper and fantastic music.  We didn’t stay too late, the pub was packed and need to rest up for tomorrow start of the walk.  Plus we really sucked as singing along to the Irish songs with the rest of the crowd.