Final day in the emerald isle. Not catching the ferry until after 9pm so we have all day to fill. Our taxi driver yesterday kindly recommended Glendalough. It's in county Wicklow national park in the mountains. Set off reasonably early. Tom Tom says its only an hour away. Arrive there without a hitch. Don't forget it's mothers day, glorious sun and blue sky and bank holiday weekend in Ireland. So we get to the visitor centre car park and we cant find a parking space. Shaky is getting annoyed at the "Irish parking" and does three circuits before finally deciding to park in a tree. Anyway we go off to do our walk and I've decided to opt for the moderate route. This is before realising that the start of the trail is 1.6km away. But it was worth it. The cascading poulanass waterfall and upper and lower lake were simply stunning. Upper lake had a feel of being in the Austrian alps. A stop off at the only cafe soon saw us battling for a picnic bench to sit and eat chips on. Then a drive back to Dublin port. We chose the scenic route twisting and turning through the mountains and past huge lakes before hitting Dublin (which I negotiated very well if I do say so myself). 4 hours to early for the ferry so we stop for a quick Italian meal in a street packed full of restaurants of different nationalities, including Lebanese, Brazilian, Greek and many others. The meal was beautiful but the hitler of a waitress left a bit to be desired. She was all on to maintain eye contact with us. After ordering the tea and cafe latte at the end she firstly walked straight past our table with it before realising her mistake. Then left me what was a beautiful coffee and shaky got his tea only minus the hot water and a tea bag which we pointed out after making sure it wasn't following on a later tray.
All aboard now, an hour early. Thought it would be busy but it's still the holiday weekend over here so looks like a quiet one. One thing I am worried about is that the focus is parked between 2 huuuuggee HGVs. Might look like an accordion by the time we dock!!