Here we go! Today, with our traveling companions Lee and Howie Needelman, we depart for Ireland on the first leg of our Great Adventure. We meet at Eppley Airfield in Omaha with our combined five suitcases, our four carry-on pieces, plus three additional suitcases that we are shepherding across the Atlantic for our neighbours the Highlands. Zöe , Garth, and their three children, Iris, Esmè and Arthur are emigrating to Ireland at the end of the month, Zöe returning to her homeland and Garth becoming the foreigner in the family. As we are able to check additional luggage, we offered to ferry the added pieces.
Our first flight is to Chicago via United Airlines went well, for the most part on time. We and our luggage made it with no problems, and we were only 15 minutes late push off. The 7 hours 43 minute flight was smooth and arrived in Dublin 30 minutes ahead of schedule. After clearing passport control and collecting all the baggage, we proceeded to the arrivals hall to be met by Zoe’s uncle Dick Butler who collected the excess baggage and also one of Covert’s extra bags, considerably lightening our load. (We will collect our extra piece of luggage at the end of the Ireland leg before we head over to England.)
At the SIXT car rental agency we signed the rental agreement and loaded on to the shuttle for the car park where we were to pick up our vehicle. Unfortunately, the vehicle we bargained for was not able to accommodate all our luggage, nor allow the rear seat passengers to view much out the windows. We quickly regrouped, and after a search throughout the inventory, we finally landed a new Skoda SUV that would carry all our luggage and provide plenty of visibility for all the travellers, and at a bargain upgrade of only €525!
We drove off the airport property in search of the M1 motorway. Our destination was north of Dublin to the New Grange area. In this region there are a number of pre-Christian burial mounds, New Grange being the most well known and totally excavated and available for tourists. Unfortunately we had found while back home that all the timed tickets were sold out well in advance for today’s date. Our resources (Zöe ) had told us that there were a number of other mounds in the immediate area, Knowth and Douth being two. Knowth was available for tour only with a group, and required pre-purchased tickets, but Douth was undeveloped and we were able to walk the grounds, hike up the mound and survey the area, which we did.
These burial mounds are at least 5,000 years old and have underground burial chambers. Two had been discovered in the mid 1800’s but they had not yet been excavated and set up for touring. The setting is idyllic and we enjoyed hiking to the top of the mound and viewing the surrounding countryside. We could even see the New Grange mound off in the distance. A wonderful experience.
We then drove on to our destination, Darnley Lodge in the town of Athboy. We found our destination, parked and toted out luggage up the three flights of steps to our very serviceable rooms. We descended for an early and excellent dinner of sea bass, pasta and hamburgers, accompanied by wine and beer. We topped off a surprisingly delicious dinner with a shared serving of Eton Mess and then a short walk around town. We were in bed before 9:00 for the end of a very long 24 hour travel day!
