Sally Gap (Lough Tay)

We drove over Sally Gap several times on this trip, and on those drives, Chris drove.  I did a fair amount of driving in Ireland, but the road to Sally Gap is remarkably narrow, steep, curvy and bumpy.  As we drove, George kept yelling from the backseat, "Don't do dat Daddy!  Don't do dat!"  He seemed to be asking Chris not to take sharp corners, which were unavoidable (though he could have slowed down!)  At the top of Sally Gap there is a lovely lookout point.  We hiked down a bit for some photos, then Dan and I walked further down where we could look down over the cliff and see the estate of Guinness heir, The Hon. Garech Brown, and the beautiful lake, Lough Tay, often called Guinness Lake due to it's brown color and white foamy edge like a beautiful pint of Guinness.  Cpedia describes the area:

""Lough Tay is a small but scenic lake set in the Wicklow Mountains in County Wicklow, Ireland. ^[1.13]

It lies between the mountains of Djouce and Luggala, and is most easily viewed from above, from the R759 or the Wicklow Way as it descends past the JB Malone memorial. ^[1.14]

Scoured by glaciers during the last ice age the spectacular view across Lough Tay and the Clohogue River to Luggala make the 6,000 acre Luggala Estate in the Wicklow National Park a favourite with sightseers and walkers on The Wicklow Way. ^[1.15] Lough Tay is often called 'The Guinness Lake' because the owner of the estate is The Hon Garech Browne, a Guinness heir, and the water also carries a brownish colour from the surrounding peat bogs.

Dan, in spite of his sore foot (and he limped all afternoon after) played mountain goat and walked right along a cliff to take some photos.  The pictures just don't do it justice.  He was standing on a small ledge over a dramatic drop down to the cliffside which then dropped hundreds of feet.  The photo makes it look like a simple grassy knoll, and it was anything but.

We're in a tiny VW Polo in this picture, and we take up about 4/5 of the road...and this is the straight and wide part.  It's funny, because you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere on a tiny track road.  But at the top of the hill is a crossroads with signs to Dublin, Galway, etc...and you realize you're on the road to EVERYWHERE!