Day 8 - The Murder Hut

Due to my cold, I’ve been pretty bad at jotting notes during the day, so if the last few days are less detailed, I get a pass.  Our first stop today was the House of Waterford Crystal.

We learned that while most of Waterford Crystal is now manufactured outside of Ireland, they do still have a working factory and do custom orders locally.  The sun was shining (yay) as we headed to the plant.  We went on the tour and everyone enjoyed it.  There was a lot of talk about Waterford history, but as I was drugged up on Dayquil and the remnants of Nyquil, I recall very few details.  There were, however, a few things that sparked my interest.

We watched the workers blowing glass for trophy bases and vases; glass blowing is actually really cool and I’d like to see it again whilst not in a drug-induced haze. 

We saw the different stations where they did the marking, cutting and engraving.  The cutting is amazing – they make the decorative cuts in each piece individually and by hand.  One guy just holds the crystal up to some type of sanding blade/pad and knows exactly where and how deep each cut needs to be.  They require five years of training before they can cut.  The guy we saw had about 50 years of experience and is retiring in a few months.  We got to play with some of the pieces and Triecia had the honor of breaking an imperfect piece. 

Damon & Bobby playing crystal football

Triecia breaking glass

It seems that each and every piece of Waterford Crystal is handled by about 8-10 different people in the process and each piece is made completely by hand.  We did not see anything that remotely mechanized the process other than a weird Frankenstein machine that spun and held a bunch of sharpies and springs to assist with marking each piece for cutting.

After Waterford, we made our way to Wicklow National Park in hopes of getting in one last hike.  Triecia really wanted to visit the nearby Powerscourt Estate, house and gardens whereas Damon and opted to go on one final nature walk.  We dropped them off and found a path about 10 minutes away that would lead us to the Powerscourt waterfall – Irelands highest waterfall.  Our hike was a little over 4 miles and we had agreed to be back at the gardens by a specific time, meaning, we didn’t have time to dally.  It looked like a relatively flat hike, which I wanted given that I was prone to coughing fits and exertion didn’t seem like an awesome idea.  But, the sun was shining, the temps were reasonable, and we wanted to be outside.

The first part of our hike was on a paved road and paralleled a river.  Damon got antsy and was worried our hike would take too long, so he decided we needed to take a shortcut through the woods.  Since we did have GPS and I also had a map with the path marked on my phone, I begrudgingly agreed to do it.  The marked path is a really long narrow U shape, like a huge switchback.  The idea was to cut across the U near the “prongs” so we could meet up again with our marked path.  Oh, and there was a river that we had to get across.   Anyone who has ever followed their husband into the woods because he wants to take a shortcut should realize this was not going to end well.

We basically marched around lost in the woods going back and forth trying to meet up the path. 

Immediately before getting smacked in the face with a branch

Bushwackng through waist-high fern field

At one point we did have to cross the river and we found a narrow point that had some decent walking logs on it.  I managed to not fall in (a small miracle), Damon is much more graceful than me. 

The branch I'm hanging onto bounces

Runs across like a man

We also came a cross a fence with barbed wire that had an opening, so we went through that.  Seemed like a good idea until in the middle of the woods we found what I describe as the sacrifice site.  When you are marching through the woods and come across a huge clearing with logs outlining a triangle with a weird tee-pee in the middle, one should realize that it is clearly a site where people are sacrificed, and one should walk in a different direction.  We had to stop and take pictures. 

Murder tee-pee

Upon continuation of our journey, again, hiking through the middle of the woods, we came across what I dubbed, the murder hut.  Why is there a lean-to in the middle of the woods near a sacrificial tee pee?  I’m not waiting to find out.  Damon took more pictures. 

Murder Hut

We were neither murdered nor sacrificed and eventually popped out near the waterfall, which was spectacularly beautiful.  NOTE:  It took us the same distance and time to take Damon’s shortcut as it would have to stay on the marked path.  Damon swears the lean too and tee pee were just for weary hikers.  I don’t think so.

Back to waterfall - my favorite picture

After our harrowing journey, it was a little disconcerting to see lots of people at the waterfall until we realized there was a road that allowed people to drive right up to it without risk of sacrifice.  Noted for next time. 

The waterfall.  One of the (smart) driving visitors took our picture

On the way back, I forced Damon to stay on the marked path, which he agreed to.  We made it back to Triecia and Bobby, only an hour after our designated meeting time.  They had a great time perusing the beautiful gardens.

Prettier than waist-high fern forest

Well marked paths

Did not have to cross water features by log

Garden house was less scary than murder hut

Our last day in Ireland is tomorrow and we will be spending it in Dublin.  So, we agreed to finish the drive to Dublin tonight, so we could wake up with lots of time to explore.  We stayed at the brand-new Hyatt Centric, just opened a week earlier.  It was a bit embarrassing to show up with our car that we had half been living in for the past week in our grubby hiking clothes, but since Hyatt is my home away from home, all was good.  We went to the bar for dinner as the restaurant was closed for some pop-up music event with some famous Irish singers – if you’ve ever heard of Soule, she was there.  We had a quick dinner and then settled in for the night.