Whilst the van was great, nothing other than your own bed beats a proper bed, so it was nice to get a decent night's sleep and a shower without the need to traipse over to a shared shower block. We had a B&B deal and the owner Joe cooked us all Irish breakfasts to order and even got the kids some extra bacon on request!
We then hit the road for our first stop of the day, the Waterford Suir Valley Railway. Built along the route of an original full size railway, the WSVR is currently a 7km out and back line from the station in Kilmeadan. They have aspirations to extend further east to Waterford, but for now the end is close to the Thomas Francis Meagher toll bridge.
The line is very picturesque running along the River Suir and as we hadn't booked, we were lucky to get on the 1pm departure, however it did mean we ended up in an enclosed part of the train and not the open section. On any other day of the holiday that wouldn't have been a problem, but finally it was a sunny day and 24°C, so it was a little like a 40 minute journey in a greenhouse! Once back at Kilmeadan station the kids quickly completed the quiz whilst I took some photos, but we didn't have long as we needed to drive 15 minutes to our second stop of the day and final activity in Ireland, ready for a 2.30pm start.
Forrest in particular has a love of birds and has always enjoyed falconry demonstrations at zoos or events that we have visited. With Ireland being renowned for falconry based activities, we really wanted to include one in the holiday, but most had T&C's that would exclude Paloma completely from the experience. Fortunately we made contact with Willie Corcoran at Mayfield Birds of Prey and he was happy to offer us a private family session that we could tailor exactly to what would work for us and the birds.
Willie started with a brief introduction to himself and how he ended up as a fully trained falconer. He then introduced us to all the birds that he had with him today at the falconry centre and after talking us through the dos and don'ts we set off for our walk with Mikey the Harris Hawk. We were joined by Willie's son on the walk and to start with Mikey flew between his son and Forrest or Amber, but then Willie asked Paloma if she would like a go and she surprisingly said yes so she joined in, and I handed over the camera for one single flight too (photo evidence to follow as only on the proper camera, not a phone pic as used whilst away for the blog).
We then returned to the centre to meet the owls and Amber, Forrest and Paloma all got to hold a number of the different owls. Forrest's favourite was Hiccup the Tawny Owl whilst Paloma liked Peanut the Asian Wood Owl. The final experience was with Gabby, the Long Eared Owl and the kids got to fly her back and forth between them multiple times.
In the end we spent almost two and a half hours with Willie and his son and if we hadn't needed to dash to Rosslare for our ferry, I'm sure we could have continued for quite some time longer. Willie's passion for what he does and his love to share his knowledge was so clear to see and we couldn't recommend it enough to anyone else who wants to experience the Ancient East's Sport of Kings.
Back in the car we had just under two hours to cover the 100km to Rosslare, so decided to change our original plan which had been to avoid the Waterford toll bridge, and thus save ourselves 15 minutes on the journey time. We also had to curtail the plan for a quick pub tea near Rosslare and popped in to a Tesco instead to grab some bits for a car picnic that we ate whilst waiting for check-in and to board.
As I write this we are about two hours into the crossing with around another hour to go on the Stena Nordica. We have a berth so the kids (and us) can get some rest and after coming with me for an explore of the ship Paloma is now fast asleep, whilst Forrest is resting rather restlessly in the other bunk snuggled up to Amber who I think is dead to the world! We have a hotel booked in Fishguard, so only a 5 minute drive ahead tonight before the 250 miles back to Wycombe tomorrow.
