#18 The Quay

When Molly arrived back at her cottage Kevin was sound asleep on the sofa curled up with the the blanket she had given him earlier. She quietly slipped by him and headed to her room to shower and get ready for the day. She left Kevin's bag next to the sofa so if he woke up he would see it.

When Molly came back to the main room after putting herself together she found Kevin dressed and sipping on a fresh cup of tea.

"So did you enjoy you nap?" she asked.

"I didn't realize how tired I was," Kevin chuckled back. "Now that the sun has come out what about if we do a little of that sightseeing you've been telling me about?"

"Just what I had in mind. What if we start in Wexford Town and then we could work our way back this way?"

"You're the tour guide this time, so where we go is up to you," Kevin smiled back.

Molly was very familiar with places she had been to many times but also was looking for some out of the way places that would impress Kevin. Normally she would head toward Wexford Town, but today with the sun coming out after the storm she thought a drive out to Hook Head Lighthouse would be wonderful. Molly decided to pack a picnic lunch for the two of them and made a thermos of hot tea to go along with the sandwiches. It would surely be windy and a bit cold this time of the year out on the peninsula. Finally prepared they headed out in Molly's car.

The ride was glorious. More than Molly could have wished for. Kevin was duly impressed with the countryside and ruins in the middle of farm fields. With a few rain clouds and some fine sprinkling of rain there were more than enough rainbows to keep them busily pointing out new ones to each other as the drove the back road to Hook Head.

Approaching the lighthouse the peninsula narrowed to where water was visible on both sides of the road. The lighthouse stood like an amazing black and white sentry to the landscape at the very end of the road as it had stood for over eight hundred years and was now the oldest intact lighthouse in the world.

Molly really had no care about its age. She just knew that the view from the balcony was spectacular. In the back of her mind she secretly hoped that they might see a humpback whale off the shore.

After the chilly climb up the one hundred fifteen steps and back, Molly and Kevin stopped by the cafe and bakery and chose some sweets to complete their lunch. As the day progressed and the sun contunued to shine, it was more than warm enough to sit at one of the picnic tables and enjoy their lunch and sweet dessert.

It only took a little over an hour to get to the lighthouse so Molly planned a slight diversion on the way back toward Wexford Town. Taking the road on the west side of the peninsula (they had come through Fethard on the east) Dunbrody Abbey could be spotted a few miles away standing back from the road. It was a jewel all alone in the countryside. In the last several years it had been restored. It had been left for so many years like other Irish castles and abbeys to deteriorate. Now it was something special to behold.

Time seemed to stop at this point for Molly and Kevin as they walked through the abbey. The abbey was not rebuild but restored to a point where you could wander the insides and feel the spirit of the time.

Just down the road was the John F. Kennedy Arboretum. Molly and Kevin passed on this to visit another time. When Molly and Kevin realized how much time they had spent at the abbey they had no choice but to head back to Kilmore Quay so they were not late for dinner with Molly's parents.