Thursday 25th June Day 38
It’s Big day time for Barb to visit a big garden which is apparently the 3rd best garden in the world not sure what number the hanging gardens of Babylon came, anyway as there were 47 acres of gardens for her to visit we were up early and on the road, it was about an hours drive to Powerscourt gardens so let’s skip the first bit of the journey, I did think that when we got close to the 3rd best 47 acre garden in the world would have one of those brown come to the gardens this way signs but there were none to be seen. So we rely on Syd to take us there, now if you have put a postcode that it is in the middle of nowhere and covers 47 acres into a SatNav there may be a problem of him taking you there and this is exactly what happened on this occasion, after Syd taking us down some stupid roads which probably circumnavigate the 47 acres a couple of times and still not a brown sign in sight, he proudly says You have reached your destination, well we may have reached our destination but what we had reached was probably the back gate to the gardens and when you have paid an entrance fee, you don’t want to be going in the back way, anyway it was locked. We tried telling Syd to take us to the gardens but he insisted that we were there. Time to drive around and find a sign which would hopefully give us a clue as to find the front gates, all this lark probably took longer than the original drive but eventually we found the place and through the elegant stone built entrance arch, the narrow entrance arch, they must use the back gate to get bigger things in. We drive along the 2 kilometre tree lined drive and eventually reach and the entrance to the gardens, phew that was much more difficult than it needed to be, I told Barb not to rush, mind you with 47 acres to look at it was going to be a bit of a marathon not a sprint. After dropping Barb off, I headed to Bray where we planned on staying for the night as there was a stopover by the harbour, I went to check it out and have a look around the town that was apparently only 15 minutes away which to be fair on Syd it was, there were two ways to the harbour the shorter route took you under a narrow 3 metre arched railway bridge and I wasn’t sure if that 3 metres was at the highest point in the middle or at its lowest and as Glo is 2.7 metres high and her highest point is at the very edge of her roof, could have made things interesting and as we had found that out in Italy a few years ago I chose the longer route which used a level crossing to get to the harbour. The car park was extremely busy and I had wait for a while until a suitable parking space became available, then it was a relaxing walk along the seafront and into the town, what can I say yes it was a seaside town with shops and stuff oh it even had a Penmarni, I found an authentic Italian coffee shop and called in for an Americano and chose a table outside so I could have a bit of people watching sport, the coffee was much better than the people watching which was totally uneventful, then it was a bit more of a walk around the town, which considering that I don’t like shops was wasted on me. Then I got a call off Barb to go and collect her, have you finished, yes I have, was it a misprint should have said 4.7 acres, don’t be smart come and get me, ok on my way I will be there in about 30 minutes, that was if I could remember my way back while ignoring Syd and the elusive brown signs. Amazingly my memory got me there without any detours, I went to meet Barb and we sat in the sunshine having an ice cream, I sensed that she wasn’t very happy with the gardens especially when she said that the ice cream was the best thing about it. She said that she wasn’t too sure who voted it the 3rd best garden in the world but whoever it was they were either on something, had been bribed or had not been to Sefton Park, oops let’s head back to the town and I can show the harbour stopover it’s much better. My memory also worked in the opposite direction and after avoiding the low bridge we arrived at the harbour, Barb found a parking space overlooking the small yacht’s bobbing around in the water, which would also do us for the overnight stop, there were other vans there but Barb had found us the prime location which was hidden away in a secluded part of the car park. What would we do next oh I know let’s go for a walk around the town, oh deep joy that sounds like a great idea and off we went, it was still full of the uninteresting shops that were there before but obviously Barb hadn’t seen them, it was a tad hot to be looking at shops which it was unlikely we were going to buy anything from. After a walk along the promenade we headed back to the harbour, on the way Barb said that as it was going to be hotter in Glo than it was outside we should go to one of those establishments and support the local economy, oh go on if we must. It was apparent that others had that community spirit as the first we visited was extremely busy and the second was pretty much the same, then we headed back to Glo to open everything that would open to try and get some cool air from the slight breeze that was coming from the sea, not much happened after that including writing this which is why I am playing catch up again, Dublin tomorrow let’s see what happens there.
Stopover Bray Harbour, Bray Co Wicklow
WTW saga.dissolves.servers