from Pillar to Post: a traveller's guide to stuff: Gleann dá loch

Glendalough (Gaelic: Gleann dá loch, Pronunciation: Glen-da-lock, Translation: Valley of the Two Lakes) is pretty well described by its name. It's a tiny village sporadically settled about the eastern and northern shores of two bodies of water, known as the Lower and Upper Lakes, nestled in a quiet valley within the rugged and windswept Wicklow Mountains approximately 54km south of Dublin. It was founded in the 6th century by the monk St. Kevin after he retreated into a small cave above the Upper Lake in order to achieve solitude. His solitude was short-lived, however, and it wasn't long before others had joined him and a number of churches were constructed. From that point it flourished as a monastic centre for eight centuries until it was pillaged by English soldiers in 1398, leaving behind the ruins that remain today. Bloody English!
Malin and I met my new housemates, fellow freebies Ryan and Jamie, that first evening and the following day, after a walk around the lakes, the guys took us for a hike over one of the hills for some fantastic views of the lakes, waterfalls and valley below. Not to mention the nearby monastic ruins and cemetery. All quite spectacular really. What I've discovered is that the place is serene and beautiful irrespective of the weather: sun, rain, hail, wind or snow.. That's right... Snow!
On my second day, after Malin had returned to Dublin for work, as I began my first day of housekeeping, it started to snow. For hours it snowed. The sheep in the field adjacent to the hostel grazed in it and the mountaintops were capped white. Everything became white. It was such a shock to see this in late October but I was not complaining. In fact I was thrilled - it was the first snow I had seen in a few years - and although I was wearing my flip-flops I couldn't resist heading outside for a closer look.
Ryan, Jamie and I went for a couple of great hikes in that first week and even took advantage of the remaining high-altitude snow with a snowball fight on the top of Camaderry mountain, on the northern side of the Upper Lake. Deer and goats are bountiful on these mountains and the high-pitched shriek, uncomfortably reminiscient of a small child screaming, used in communication and especially as a warning by the deer can be heard all around the area.
As if somehow prompted by the snowfall, I was able to watch the somewhat gloomy transition from autumn to winter as the foliage of vibrant reds and yellows slowly succumbed to gravity and a number of trees became bare skeletons of their former selves. This is not to say that the landscape has now become desolate or unattractive, in fact the opposite has occurred. With many trees still retaining their greenery and the remaining having turned an eerie shade of purple, not to mention their newly exposed intricacy as having complicated and twisted branch structures and as the home for many mosses and lichens, it feels as though winter has brought a new face to the environment. One prepared for the colder months.
Although the snow melted away from the mountain not long after our snowfight in that first week, I don't think I would go so far as to say that there has been a day of consistent warmness since. Oddly, I have experienced a number of mornings where the sun beaming down will prove to be warmer than the same that afternoon - although the hostel has internet, it's a little expensive and it's not wireless, so Ryan and I would generally make the trek with our laptops to the pub in the next town over, Lynhams of Laragh, to scrounge their wireless from the cold sidewalk - yes, we are cheaps bastards... On these days, it would not be until we were finishing up or walking back to the hostel that my fingers would start to sting from the cold and I would sometimes find it difficult to speak without shaking. Good times. More recently, the temperature has started dropping below zero during the day causing ice to remain on the grass and puddles to freeze over almost permanently. The white caps on the mountains have also returned.

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