At this rate, two months in Ireland won't be enough!

This is our third day in Ireland, and we're exactly 50 kms (30 miles) from where we arrived at Rosslare Harbour. There's so much to see, packed into a fairly small country. Ireland is about the same size as the state of Indiana. Or from a Canadian perspective, the province of Ontario is 15 times larger than Ireland!

The population of the entire island is just over 7 million, with 2 million in the north, and 5 million in the south. 

We went for a walk Wednesday morning over to a beautiful swimming beach. The temperature at the time was only 13C (55F) and we had our heavy sweaters on and even a winter hat due to the wind. And yet, there were a group of women about our age who were in swimming! 

Ruth, testing the water.

Baginbum Beach. This would be a busy spot on a hot sunny day.

Me!

Yes, the spot where Max was parked was beautiful... however it was becoming windy and we decided to head inland a bit. 

When we had been in England last year we bought an annual English Heritage membership that allows us free parking as well as entrance into many historical attractions. It also allows us into quite a few attractions in Ireland as well, so we're going to try to visit as many as we can while we're here to take advantage of the membership.

Just a little north, near the town of New Ross is the JFK Arboretum.

John F. Kennedy's eight great-grandparents all migrated to Boston, Massachusetts during the devastating Potato Famine of the late 1840’s. One of them was from the town of New Ross, and JFK himself felt a strong connection to Ireland, even visiting the area once during his presidency. 

There is a nice JFK display.

The arboretum itself is fantastic. There are 4,500 species of trees and shrubs from all over the world where they thrive due to Ireland's mild climate and suitable soil. It's a huge property of 252 hectares (622 acres) of forest and gardens. And of course there are lots of walking paths to explore the property.

Another nice day in Ireland!

These things had huge leaves.

Lots of big flowering shrubs.

This funny tree didn't look very healthy, but we think it's supposed to be that way.

This tree had these funny little flowers.

All kinds of greenery.

Really good spot to spend a couple of hours wandering around. Popular with the picnic crowd on weekends, and there is a big children's playground as well.

Normal admission without the pass is €5 per adult, or €13 for a family.

From there, we headed to a nearby 12th century abbey... the Dunbrody Abbey. It's not included with our heritage pass, and costs €5 each to get in. We're going to pass on that because there's a similar one nearby that is included, so we'll go there and save our money. However, we can still overnight for free in their parking lot, so we'll take advantage of that while we're here.

Scenery along the way.

Dunbrody Abbey.

Today, we'll head a little further north to the Jerpoint Abbey with a stop in New Ross along the way.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nice price drop on Women's Merrill Hiking Shoes. at Amazon.com.

And in Canada...

Kindle eReaders are on sale at Amazon.ca.