Camping in the Wicklow Mountains

............... Djouce Mountain, Co. WicklowPhil and I went south of Dublin about an hour into the Wicklow mountains. We went for a hike near the Sally Gap. The weather tried hard to ruin the overnight, but we made the best of it.
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We're about to set out. This is as dry and warm as we'd be until we went home. When we left the car, it was just spitting a little and a little breezy.

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Here I am, all smiles, at the summit. It started to get a little windier up here and the rain kicked up as we left the trail for the summit. As soon as we broke off the trail for the summit (walking straight into the clouds) we started to suffer the wrath of the August Irish summer!
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Here's Phil looking for a spot to set up our tent (which he just got for 11 euro) which was really worth the money... ; )
And yes, we actually had to scare the sheep away to set up our tent.
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Once we set up the tent behind one of the summit rocks, we settled in for what we thought was going to be a cozy afternoon with some scotch and the inside of a warm tent... NOT!!!
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Here's a video from inside the test as the wind and rain started to pick up a good bit.
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This had never happened to me before. The tent began to buckle under the force of the wind. When we were trying to sleep in the tent, the corner tent poles began to bang into my head. The windward side of the tent was being collapsed in toward the middle.
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Time for "plan B"!
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We packed up and made our way back toward the woods. On our way in, we passed through some pretty dense forest before we got onto the trail. We thought we'd be able to find a better spot in the woods.
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Aaaahhhhhhh!!!! Home sweet home. We finally set up inside the woods. We were almost completely sheltered from the wind and the rain had slowed down a bit.
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That's dinner out on the stove there: Irish beef, and onion, beans, rice with Phil's special cumin based spice pack and cheese on whole grain wraps. Great for dinner and breakfast.
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Everything was covered in a real heavy layer of moss catapulted by the thick humidity. It was much nicer to be back in the woods rather than the bare mountain top.
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Here's Phil shaking out the 2 cups of water that soaked his hat yesterday. It was actually DAMN cold this morning too. Felt more like February than August!
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After we left the parking lot, we headed back the long way to take in the view as the weather improved. Phil's looking down here at the deer farm on the grounds of Lugalla.