Have you got an ATM?

After we've been fed at the local pub just outside of Kilpedder, we ask the barman where the nearest ATM is located.

He takes Charlie outside to point him in the direction we need to go, and says that we should turn right whenever we can and we should find a Centa (like 7-11 stores in the States) with an ATM.

We take the road that was pointed out to us, miss the right turn and find ourselves winding around the countryside, oohing and ahhing over the view, but not finding an ATM. Hmm...

We decided to press on towards Glendalough (GLEN-da-lock) and hope that we find a bank on the way. Even with our amazing road atlas of Ireland, we manage to yet again get lost, mostly because we really didn't even know what road we were on the first place, but somehow managed to find ourselves rolling through towns that sounded familiar from having read about them in our travel books. We stopped to ask for directions at a camping park and here we learned a very valuable lesson. When asking for directions, never ask to find your way to a specific road. Always ask for directions to a specific place, or building in that place. Otherwise, if you ask for directions to the R755 as I did, you'll have native Irish telling you they've never heard of it. Rather disconcerting for us streetwise Americans. So, you'll ask for and receive directions based on places, like: Turn at the post, then keep going until you see O'Kelly's pub, turn left there, and then drive until you see the giant oak tree and you've arrived!

That's how we found our way to Glendalough, and we received a hand-drawn map via email to direct us to our B&B, the Derrymore House. Noted on that map was "a very large oak tree." Needless to say, we missed the entrance to the house a few times. We also accidentally pulled the front bumper off of the car while backing up and turning around. Oops.

And it still hasn't rained yet.

Ok, so we finally get ourselves up to the Derrymore House, which is overlooking the Lower Lake and ask Pat, our innkeeper about the bumper of the car. He tell us that he's got no experience with cars, but we might be able to bump it back into place. We try that, and it seems to work! After a quick rest, we head out for a hike around the Upper Lake at Glendalough. We followed the White Trail, which was 9km of beautiful hiking! We hiked through forest, along streams and waterfalls, through bogs, through giant boulders, past an old mining operation and along an access road to the mine. We didn't realize that maybe we should have gone to the right, though, because we ended up climbing what seemed to be thousands of stairs to get up to the peak of the mountain.

Needless to say, we nearly fell asleep face first in our dinner!