PERIODIC PHOTOGRAPH  
I will display different photographs here at fairly regular intervals.

Glendalough

Glendalough (meaning valley of the two lakes) in County Wicklow is about 70 minutes drive from Bunclody. It is one of the most beautiful areas that I have ever visited. A monastery was founded here in the 6th century by Saint Kevin and lots of remains of this can be still seen there. There is the famous Round tower, which is still in near perfect condition, also the ruins of an old church and lots of other relics of that period. But it is the scenery that I go there for.

The picture above is taken at the bottom of the upper lake and it is from the car park here that I take my walks anti-clockwise around this lake. This walk (less than 3 hours long) takes you up the valley alongside the "waterfall", parts of which can be seen glistening in the background in the above photo.

After crossing the stream near the head of the waterfall, there is a tough-ish climb to the board-walk that brings one back along the high cliffs that borders the lake on the return journey.

At the bottom of the picture above, the stream from the waterfall can be seen feeding the upper lake. Also the road/path from the car park can be seen running parallel to the stream. The car park is near the top of the picture between the two lakes. I don't know how high this cliff is but one has to search hard to be able to see the little dots that are people walking along the path below.

Here is a view of the lower lake and of the fine board-walk that has made this walk much more pleasant than it used to be. From here it is less than an hours walk back to the car park. There is though, a difficult descent down hundreds of wooden steps. As difficult as this descent is, it is much more preferable than ascending them and it is partially for this reason that I do this walk in an anti-clockwise direction.

At the top of this photo (above) is the upper lake. Because of the perspective, it doesn't look much bigger than this pool at the head of the waterfall, where we cooled off with a swim. Cooled off is a bit of an understatement, as the water up here was very cold when I first got into it. After a while it didn't seem so bad and in the end I was reluctant to leave the pool. It was a sunny day and it was very pleasant to repeatedly get from the pool onto the sun-warmed rocks and to then dive back into to pool again.

This photo is here just to prove that I really did get into the pool at the head of the waterfall. Brrrr.