Eco Tour of Ireland Day 3

As I negotiated my way from Lough Bishop House through the diversion at Delvin to Athboy I suddenly realised that I was being beeped at! Who knew me in Athboy I wondered?

James Murray  of BoyneValleyActivities.ie that’s who! James had obviously been checking out our photos and had recognised the Opel Mokka S kindly sponsored for our trip by Ferrybank Motors, Wexford and beeped me to follow him to the first of their two centres.

Boyne Valley Activities are based, as the name suggests, along the Boyne River Valley with a base in Trim, Co Meath and just outside Athboy at Drewstown House also. They run a number of activities to suit various ages and levels including their 10 meter tree canopy challenge course set deep in woodlands.

Two of James’ instructors (Gav and Fergal) were on hand to give us a taste of this high ropes course which is quite challenging thus all participants must first make it up the climbing wall before they are allowed to continue. You can view videos of the lads completing the course in no time at all and flying down the zip wire on our YouTube Channel here >>.

I am not a great swimmer – actually I would not call myself a swimmer at all as I cannot go out of my depth. So James had a tough job to convince me to get into a canoe with him to sample the beauty of his medieval tour.

But convince me he did and we hopped (rather ungainly on my part) into a reassuringly large Canadian Canoe (specially brought out for scaredy cats like me!) and as we travelled up river he pointed out the various and many castles and ruins along the riverbank.

He has a deep local knowledge which he continuously improves and is a natural storyteller – now I know where the two Irish phrases ‘P*** Poor ‘ and ‘Hasn’t a bucket to p*** in’ come from! (Apparently people used to sell their pee as a cleaning agent..I’ll leave it up to James to fill you in)

This is a really relaxing and unique way to see the heritage of the area and also perfect for wildlife lovers like myself.

Boyne Valley Activities is run by both James Murray and Dara Llewellyn  and they cater for school tours, corporate groups, team building days and individuals interested in trying out Kayaking, White Water Rafting, Archery & High Ropes in a safe and controlled environment.