A Trip to Killarney

by Steffi Edwin--

 

My day started very early on my trip to Killarney. I made all my preparations the night before, so without any hurry burry I got ready, took my bag and left my home with a broad smile on my face. When I stepped out of my door my broad smile started to disappear when I saw the dark surrounding and no people around, with only street lights on. I just typed Cork train station in google map and it started to lead the way.

To make easy for google to lead the right way, I held my mobile and stretched my hand in front

of me and started to walk. On my way, a man who was on his early shift of cleaning the bins in the city asked me “Do you need my mobile for an emergency call, dear?” I just wondered, suddenly why is he offering his mobile to me? By catching my questioning face he said to me “I think you are stretching your hand for search of signal in your mobile. As it’s so early in the morning, I just thought to offer my mobile if you are in need of any help to make a call.” I just thanked him for his kind offer and took back my hands closer to me and started to walk, cursing google map, knowing that it will lead the way even if I don’t stretch my hand ahead.

After two and a half kilometres of walk I reached the station and took the train from Cork to

Midleton. When I stepped out of the train my face was splashed with a pale red light. I looked up and saw a beautiful sun rise.

From far away, a voice called out my name. As the bright sun light was over me, I shrank my eyes to see who was that, and there I saw Eleanor, then Marie, who was running fast towards me, to catch up with me before I got lost.

We reached Killarney after two hours of bus travel. Before starting to hike, we had some bread

and coffee in a cottage, as breakfast. When we started our walk in Killarney, it was raining. All along the way, my whole body fell in love with the place, which looked extraordinarily magnificent. I stretched my two hands wide open and chinned up with closed eyes and felt the peace and joy surrounding me; I even shouted out loud saying “I am so happy.......y!”. The grass around the place looked like a green velvet sheet, covering the mountains to welcome us; they were harvested by horses and sheep for their breakfast as well.

All other tourists were longing for clear sky and sun shine instead of rain. As I love rain and

cloudy sky I was having a pleasant joyful smile all over me for having rain on the day. We hiked for more than three hours and reached another cottage, to rest our feet and to have our lunch. Then we joined a boat ride; half-way through the ride, there was heavy rain. The wind was so strong that the water in the river started to splash on us and filled the boat like a pool.

In the boat I got introduced to Mr. Stephen who was one of our crew members. When we shook

hands, the water and the boat also ‘shook hands’, so we stumbled and I got close to fall off the boat. After that incident, we got a tight hold of the boat and started to introduce ourselves. I thought the wind and water didn’t like our speech because, when I opened my mouth to say my name the water splashed in my face and stopped my speech. And when Mr. Stephen was about to speak, the water did the same to him, without any partiality as our hands were holding the boat to avoid falling; we were not even able to use them to wipe our faces. Finally we managed to introduce ourselves, even though we were getting left and right slaps from the lake’s water. At one point we felt like swinging on a Viking ship as in theme parks, so we started to enjoy the splashes of water and the shaking of the boat.

I would like to rename ‘boat ride’ into ‘bath ride’ because, by the time we reached the shore, the

rain, the wind and the water made sure that we didn’t have any dry spot left on our bodies. After our bath ride, we went to the Park’s coffee shop, where we got a chance to change our clothes and to refresh by having a cup of coffee, thanks to Eleanor, who stood in a long queue and brought us back coffee and tea.

It was a beautiful coffee shop; the place where we sat was a perfect spot, with a full length glass

wall. When I took my coffee cup and turned towards the left, my eyes had a view of a wonderful garden outside; with rainy weather, the glass wall was covered with rain drops moving downwards slowly. By having my view on this, my lips took a hot sip of coffee, which melts my heart with peace and satisfaction for having this wonderful day in my life.

We took the bus back around half-four. I sat in the front seat to have a perfect view during the

journey. As it was a long day mostly everyone slept on the bus going home. My mind ordered my eyes to shut and rest for a while, but my eyes pushed the order out through my ears and I started to enjoy the raining weather and the beautiful scenery.

The bus engine vibrations through my body and the continuous movements of the wind-shield

wiper from right to left engaged me to sleep, but my eyes did not fall for those tricks; they were wide

open all the way through. As Eleanor was not asleep either, we had some chat about our pets and some general topics.

Finally we reached Midleton, just in time for me to catch my train back to Cork; I stepped on the

train and took a seat on my way back home. There ended my pleasant beautiful day.

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