Day 12 – River Valley
Today we planned to move to River Valley which is in County Wicklow but before I tell you about the new site, I must tell you about the walk of shame Ethel subjected us to. I was mortified.
It was a lovely day when we finally crawled out of bed and after breakie, we packed up the Ethster, ready to head off to pastures new. Mel went off to go to the loo or brush her teeth or something and I started the engine – or I turned the key. Nothing. I tried again. Still nothing and it didn’t matter how often I turned the key, nothing happened. My amazing mechanic skills told me it wasn’t the battery as the lights and reversing camera worked fine, but her engine was dead. Not a click, not an attempt to start. As I have said multiple times already, nothing happened.
Fortunately, we had paid an extortionate amount of money for rac cover whilst in Ireland and I duly called them, and a nice man said someone would arrive within 2 hours. I assumed he meant 6 hours. However, within an hour a very helpful, local man turned up in the biggest recovery vehicle he could have found. My cheeks reddened as already, other people were watching us, judging us. Mel told me not to worry but I did.
The mechanic chap was really nice but ultimately said he didn’t know what the problem was, and he would need to take us to a garage. That meant loading her on to his flat bed truck in front of everyone. I was embarrassed and Mel started panicking that the back of Ethel would scrape the ground as she (Ethel – not Mel) was dragged on to the truck. It was close but she was loaded with about 2 millimetres to spare.
I hid my face as we drove out of the site and cursed Ethel for putting me through the shame of breaking down in public. We were dropped off at a garage where they were very efficient and diagnosed a faulty starter motor. Soon after lunch, Ethel had a new one and we were on our way again. But I don’t think I will ever be able to show my face in Athlone again.
So far, I have damaged Ethel on a wall, fallen in the sea (ok, I know it was just a rock pool) and now we have paid the best part of £300 euros for a new starter motor. What will be next?
We arrived at River Valley caravan site late that afternoon and Mel and I decided that no site in Ireland resembles the pictures on their websites and we wondered what laws were broken for misrepresenting their services as it was not as it was described.
On the website, it was described as a ‘Secret Garden’, ‘beautifully landscaped with trees and shrubs’. It was neither secret, a garden or landscaped. It was a normal site with a fence round it. There was a couple of trees and a short hedge. The pitches were horribly close to each other, and we ended up parking in a little corner where we had a little more privacy.
But we had to make the best of it, and we decided to get a taxi to the local town – Wicklow. I asked someone in the site reception for a phone number which she duly produced and then listened to me trying to book a cab but I couldn’t hear him, and he couldn’t hear me. I gave up and the lady who gave me the number said, ‘you will get a better signal in the car park’. Why didn’t she tell me that when she gave me the number?
We walked to the car park, called John Finian Mooney (good Irish names) and after a conversation trying to understand each other, he arrived, and we got in. He was a friendly chap and, on the journeys there and back, we learned his whole life story. I won’t subject you to the whole sorry saga, but the pertinent parts are that he was 72, had gout, a clot in his leg, was waiting for a gall bladder operation (been cancelled twice already) and has just had his varicose veins done at a cost of £2k euros (no NHS in Ireland). Whilst hearing about his woes, all I could wonder was if he should be driving at all. He even said at one point that his leg almost fell off. This sort of comment does not install confidence.
However, we arrived safely in Wicklow town and had a lovely couple of hours wandering around. We found the harbour and a little beach and Mel enjoyed foraging for a short while.
Oh, I forgot to say that before we left on this outing, Mel’s daughter (Sam) called us at 8.30am – IN THE MORNING!!! We were still asleep. What part of we are on holiday did she not understand?
The following day she called again. This time at 10.30am and whilst I agree it was a more acceptable time – we were still ASLEEP. I need to suggest that when we are away, she calls in the evening!
The day we moved again, we woke up to rain and high winds. It was pretty horrible packing up in the rain and driving for hours with the wind trying to blow us over, but we finally arrived. This was despite google maps taking us down all the tiny lanes which scares Mel half to death. We have been using CoPilot which is an app where a vehicles dimensions can be added but on this occasion, the app refused to acknowledge that our next site existed. This didn’t bode well.
Anyway, we arrived in horrible rain and planned to hunker down for the evening but after a couple of hours, the sun came out and we could see the surrounding mountains. It was supposed to be lovely weather tomorrow and we will walk to the top of one of the mountains – if we get out of bed early enough!
2LadiesTravelling 