Last Friday all of the students doing Gaisce and the teachers Ms.Hughes,Ms.O'Callaghan and Mr.Kennedy left the school and headed off for the Wicklow Mountains. After a journey full of twisty roads and fabulous views we reached our destination, "Kippure Lodge" in Glendalough Co.Wicklow. There we met our instructors that we would have for the next two days and divided up into our houses. The houses we're really nice and we quickly settled in. After having a quick snack we went back outside to greet our instructors and headed off for the first part of our hike.
My house(house 5), was led by instructor Wayne and he gave me the map to lead the way for the first part of our journey. We had only walked a few kilometers before tiredness hit, but we all knew we had a long way left so kept on going. After walking through fields full of sheep horses and goats we reached a hill. Which turned out to be a very steep hill indeed! Every time we thought we had reached the top, we would look up and see more and more of it, merging into the horizon. Finally when we reached the top we were so overwhelmed by the views surrounding us and the feeling of accomplishment was great!:)
We went to a burial tomb which had been there for thousands of years. It was really deceiving as from the distance it just looked like a pile of stones but there was actually a chamber in it, which we walked through right out onto the roof , it was pretty spectacular to see and i was amazed that it was there for thousands of years.
After reaching the peak we started to make our way downhill, back to the houses. It was all so much easier going downhill! And we were all able to just take it easy and chat to each other:)
That evening back at the houses we cooked up our dinner, i had chicken tikka, nom.
After dinner we settled down to watch some HSM in the sitting room. Then it was off to bed to gain a goods night sleep for the day ahead.
Waking up at cocks crow we left the houses together, and set off for the mountains once again. We had to walk the rest of the 25km. I'll admit that it times it was a struggle but as we went through the gates of Kippure Lodge for the last time after we finished the hike ,we knew it had been worth it :)
After we completed the hike we went to do some high rope activities. We got a new instructor called Dave and he was such a mad egg! They were really fun and i tried them all :)
At about half four it was time to go home, we bit farewell to the people of Kippure and headed home.
I'm pretty sure that everyone really enjoyed the trip and the sense of accomplishment afterwards was just amazing :-D
