Bumbles Family Travels: Kilmacurragh Botanic Garden, Co. Wicklow

I just discovered this post, dated 11 May 2014 sitting unpublished in my drafts folder, so it felt right to review it now and not let it reach its first birthday. I’ve no idea why I didn’t publish last year, but here goes, maybe you’ll be able to tell! 

I may have mentioned before once or twice that we like “adventures”. When I was a child we’d ask our parents if we were going for a drive, but the boys ask us “are we going on an adventure today?”, even the small girl has started handing us coats and saying “‘mon, go ‘venture”.

Adventures usually involve the following: A drive, a walk, something to splash in (river or sea), a stick to carry and “climby trees”. They are generally followed by a picnic which can be anything from a full blown lunch to a packet of custard creams and a bottle of water. (Unless the parents forget the picnic element like today.)

Kilmacurragh ticks all these boxes. It’s a botanic garden located just north of the Arklow bypass, about 30 minutes drive from our house. (you turn at the Beehive pub coming southbound or at The Tap if coming from the Arklow direction).

You can read all about the botanic gems on the Kilmacurragh website, they do tours too, but we just go to “adventure”. I also recently discovered that you can do geocaching at Kilmacurragh- check out The Now Moment’s post on it.

The gardens are based around an old house that’s now derelict, and walking around the gardens I always find myself imagining what it must have been like to live there and retreat from the house to the stone benches by the lake with a book for an afternoon. It’s a walk in a garden, but there’s something magical in the air in Kilmacurragh, I can’t put my finger on it.

Entry is free, there is parking and toilets are available on site.