Carrowmore and Carrowkeel

Charlotte:

Today I woke up at lunch time! I stayed up pretty late last night because I couldn’t sleep.

We went to a museum about the graves of the dead people from thousands of years before Jesus was born. We saw lots of rocks that were very pretty. They were in beautiful shapes – some were formed into little houses and big circles and I found a tiny rock that shaped as a heart.

I put my heart rock in a basket to help build a Queen’s grave. And then we went in the car and drove half an hour to get to our hike.

We went on a hike up a big mountain and saw sheep that had paint across them so that the people who owned the sheep could find them (that’s what my grandma told me). I went in one of the rock graves called Cairns and climbed on top of them.

And then I came home and played outside with my brother and we had lots of fun. After that we ate dinner and played outside some more. I did lots of cool and fun, fun tricks on a go cart.

Sam:

Today I woke up around noon, and at first I didn’t even realize it was so late. Soon after, I had breakfast and then we went to see some ancient tombs.

The first place was went was like an information centre about tombs. We got to see around 15 (ish) tombs. After that we went up to a really tall mountain by hiking because we wanted to see more tombs. We saw 4 more.

On the mountain there were a lot of sheep.

They kept bleating at us. Their poop was everywhere! It took about an hour to walk from the beginning of the trail to the top.

After, we came home and relaxed and had supper. Then I went upstairs to read for awhile – I’m almost done the 5th Harry Potter book (The Order of the Phoenix). Mom made us hot chocolate for a bedtime a snack.

Mom and Dad:

I guess we haven’t quite conquered our jetlag yet!

After waking up shortly before noon, we enjoyed a late breakfast (Irish soda bread is Mom’s new addiction) and got ready to go hiking.

Our first stop was Carrowmore, a megalithic site nearby. It has a nice little visitor centre and tons of tombs. The kids enjoyed running along the paths and learning about ancient burial practices. They both spent lots of time imagining what the tombs were used for and how people lived back then.

We both learned so much, too. We read about what each part of the rock formations was for and what archeologists believe happened over time.

Next we drove about 40 minutes through the countryside (always a perilous adventure, it seems, on the narrow, windy roads with ridiculously high speed limits) to a second site, called Carrowkeel. This site is less commercial, as it has no admission or visitor centre.

We parked along a tiny path and began a long hike up the mountainside. It was a comfortable 20°C, so it was the perfect day for it.

With the help of our two tween tour guides, we arrived at the first of several cairns on the mountaintop. What a view!! We couldn’t believe that with every step, it just seemed to get better. Even the kids, who normally groan every time we mention “the view,” were enthralled.

Mom is a bit afraid of heights but couldn’t resist climbing to the top of the cairns to see as far as possible. We also had to check out what the inside of these ancient tombs looked like.