Thu, 03 Jul 2003

author Tim	location Onboard Stena Line ferry bound for Fishguard, Wales
posted 21:24 BST 07/07/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Ireland/Ireland 2 ( all photos )

Newgrange, around Dublin ( 14 photos )
Thursday we started off the morning at the farm hostel, and headed to the one main attraction in the area - Bru na Boinne, the best known part of which is Newgrange. This (along with its lesser known cousins Knowth and Dowth and a few hundered others in the area) is a five thousand year old passage tomb. The most striking feature is the outer quartz wall, which is a reconstruction, but the rest of it is pretty much original. There's one long passage you enter which, during a Winter Solstice, the sun shines down all the way as it rises in the morning. There are three little chambers at the end of this passage, forming a cross shape.
We reached the monument after a brief wander through the visitor centre (very good, as they go), then clambering on a bus to the site itself. From there, we were given an hour or so worth of guided tour, chat and wandering around the impressive construction itself.
After the tour, we watched an audio-visual thing, the most annoying aspect of which was that there was lots of speculation presented as fact. Pseudo-science is a dangerous thing.
From there, we were to tackle our biggest city in a while - Dublin, so we allowed plenty of time to bugger it up. Good move.
There is a ring-road around it, which we headed to first (from the North, of course), and drove around to the south-side heading to a caravan park recommended all over the place to check in for the night. There had been one more junction added since our map was printed - no suprise really, but I was suprised that the ring hadn't actually been completed. It's more of a half-ring road, which then dumps you un-ceremoniously in the suburbs to fight your own way to where you want to go. We later heard on the radio that there is a conservation fight going on as the proposed path of the motorway goes through an old castle. They seem to have come to some compromise - not a moment to soon for the drivers and tourists around the place.
That was all fine, we had dealt with worse, so we drove on to the target town of Shankill, south of Dublin itself but on the train line. Only the caravan park wasn't there anymore. It had closed down, despite a friend having stayed there recently and the February edition of Lonely Planet Ireland recommending it too! Oh well, back on the road, back through the city, trying to find the semi-ring-road to the only remaining caravan park in Dublin, Camac Valley, on the N7 near Rathcoole.
Quite a nice place, we cooked dinner, Liz went for a walk around the local park before we collapsed into bed, worn out from our tricky city driving.

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