Killiney Hill Park, Ireland
One of the nicest community parks we’ve ever been to. When we got there, there was a Halloween event that was just starting. Some of the schools got together and made a haunted trail for the kids. Their screams could be heard far and wide. They said we could join in the fun, but Nathan assured me that it was for younger kids and we decided to pass.
It was also raining when we got there, hence our rain ponchos. The rain didn’t last long, and I wasn’t sure if it would start up again, so we kept the ponchos on for quite a while. When we were maybe ¾ of the way finished with our visit, some locals came up to us and started a conversation. They informed me that our ponchos made us stand out like foreigners. At this point, it hadn’t rained in hours, so I’m sure we did look at bit extra. And of course, we immediately removed our ponchos. The weather this day, and the conversation about our ponchos, would prove to be our folly.
On some of the other days of our trip, when it would be lightly raining or the forecast said it would rain, I’d think back to how it rained for less than 15 minutes at Killiney Hill Park and decide that we didn’t need our ponchos. Nathan never wanted to wear his anyway and the comment about us looking like foreigners stung for some reason. So, we’d leave the ponchos in the car/hotel. More often than not, this turned out to be a mistake as the rain wouldn’t let up. Most of the time it wasn’t awful, but it would have been better to have worn the ponchos. However, luck was on our side because the first time our clothes got really wet, we were staying at an AirBnB that had a washer and dryer. How fortunate for us. Plus, it rained late in the day, so we didn’t have to spend the whole day drenched.
I must say, and Nathan was the first one to point this out, the dogs in Ireland are possibly the best-behaved dogs on the planet. He even said that he wouldn’t mind having a dog if it would be as well behaved as the dogs in Ireland. We saw a lot of dogs in Ireland and not a single one ever barked or growled. And not one came up to us. Most were not on a leash, as was the case with the two dogs in this video. You’ll see that they were running down the trail, just ahead of their owners, and when their owners spotted us and saw that Nathan was afraid, they said one word to their dogs and turned around. Immediately, the dogs turned around and followed. In the city, dogs would be off leash and would just walk directly, and I mean directly, beside their owner, never leaving their side. When two dogs would come into sight of one another, or walk past one another, they were not fazed in the slightest. They simply ignored the other dog. Does Ireland have mandatory dog training? While their behavior probably shouldn’t have been amazing to us, it really was. What a magical place.
Back to the topic at hand: the park is quite large, and we happily got turned around a few times regarding which trail we should take to get to our intended destination. There are two obelisks inside the park as well as the Pyramid of Dublin. All of which are kind of neat and offer fantastic views of the water. There are so many offshoot lookout points. You basically keep going up and up until you get to the very top, but you can stop every so many feet to go on a side trail that leads to the edge.
We learned a lot about wind while in Ireland. Okay, no so much “learned” as “experienced it like never before.” At the Cliffs of Moher, we experience winds more powerful than any “hurricane force” winds we’ve experienced in Florida. And here, there was a spot at the very top, just a single spot, where the winds converged and could lift you off your feet. And it was just a single spot. Move a little to the left or right and no wind at all, but right in that spot, like 100% of the time in that spot, it was like summoning your very own tornado. It was neat to experience that natural phenomenon.