COUNTY WEXFORD - Kia Ora Mini Farm

Kia Ora Mini Farm is a family run open farm in Gorey, County Wexford. Its a wonderful day out for the whole family, with farm animals, fire engine rides, peddle carts, and plenty of outdoor play equipment. The girls had an amazing time and the weather was exceptionally sunny and warm.

The highlight for me (and probably the girls too ) was being able to pat rabbits. The rabbits had to sit in little baskets but we were able to stroke them while we had the baskets on our laps. The rabbits didn’t seem to mind and they were so soft. There were so many rabbits and guinea pigs, we even saw nest of new born rabbits.

The farm had so many other animals to look at like cows, ponies, deer, llamas, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens and roosters. (I didn’t take many photos of them though.)

But the thing that made the farm so good for young kids was all the toys and play equipment. I’ll list a few below:

• There were mini peddle tractors that Hallie and Rooney loved riding around on.

• There were real mini excavators that kids could operate.

• Peddle Go-Karts that parents and kids could ride together.

• A soccer game that was kind of like putt putt golf but with soccer balls (this was surprisingly fun for Braino and I)

• A maze made out of netting with a slide at the end that the kids loved running around in.

• A custom made fire truck that the farmer took people for a ride in. (As an adult, this was kind of boring but a 3 year old kid whose obsessed with trucks would totally love it)

• Plenty of balls and soccer nets in the central grassy area, plus a sandpit.

Our girls had a great time but I could see how it would be a whole lot of fun for families with toddlers. All the activities were included in the admission price which was great and we were allowed to bring in our own picnics, although they did have a small cafe selling drinks, ice creams and basic stuff like chips.

COUNTY WEXFORD - Irish National Heritage Park

The Irish National Heritage Park is another exceptional interactive experience. Located just outside the town of Wexford, it is an open air museum where you can journey back in time and discover how people lived throughout history, from the Stone Age right up until the Medieval period of Ireland.

The park is divided into three sections; Pre-Historic Ireland, Early Christian Ireland and The Age of Invasions. Each section contains reconstructed dwellings that exhibit how people lived during these time periods. Visitors are able to go inside each structure, making it a really immersive learning experience for kids.

We were able to join the guided tours of the Early Christian and the Age of Invasions, but arrived a little to late for the Pre Historic Tour. The tours are included in the admission fee and we’d highly recommend joining the them, the guides were so informative and we find it’s the best way to learn and absorb the information. Braino admitted that he was surprised at how interesting Irish history is, particularly during the Age of Invasion, which covers the Vikings and Anglo - Normans. The girls were also great during the guide tours, even though we were in a rather large group.

There are also many hands on activities for kids to do throughout the park, like pan for gold, learn how to weave the walls of the ancient structures and carve markings into a rock. You can imagine that the Heritage Park is a very popular school excursion destination.

There is an obstacle course style playground at the end of the Age of Invasions section, next to the castle and round tower. In the castle there is a falconry centre where you can learn about and interact with birds of prey. We didn’t partake in this section as it was a rather substantial additional cost and we were planning to head to the Wexford Races afterwards to check out the last race of the day. We did make it in time to see that last race, Braino even collected a small win. Arriving late in the afternoon meant we also didn’t need to pay the admission fee so it a big win all round.

Overall, I’d say the Irish National Heritage Park is a beautiful open air museum where kids (and adults too) can really immerse themselves in the ancient history of Ireland. Facilities like this are such a great way for kids to learn, more preferable in some ways to a standard indoor museum. We also visited a similar folk park in Takayama, Japan - Hida No Sato.

COUNTY WEXFORD - Courtown Seal Rescue Centre

The Courtown Seal Rescue Centre, located in County Wexford was something the girls were really keen to see and it turned out to be a fantastic educational experience. An dit felt good to know our money was going to a good cause. The Seal Rescue Centre is the only charity of it’s kind in the Republic of Ireland that is dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and release of injured, sick and orphaned seals. The centre runs daily tours of the facilities, which consists of the seal hospital, the recovery kennels and the four rehabilitation pools.

The first part of the tour was a talk that ran for approx 15 minutes where we learned about the dangers that face wild seals, including pollution, disease, starvation, injuries and orphaning. We heard about all the ways volunteers across Ireland work together to rescue and transport injured and sick seals to the centre in Courtown and then what is involved in the rehabilitation and release of the seals back into the wild.

It was really interesting and the girls were very attentive during the talk. We heard success stories of seals that have been rescued and released back into the wild and got to know some of the seals that were currently recovering at the rescue centre.

Afterwards, we were led outside into the yard area of the rescue centre and were able to look through the window of the hospital room where we could watch some of the volunteers preparing food for the seals.

We were also able to observe some of the baby seals in the kennel areas where they recuperate from their injuries or sickness. Most of them were babies and are such cute little creatures in a weird looking sort of way, big eyes but a body like a slug.

The rescue centre aimed to minimised the ammount of time the seals interact with humans, to ensure they can be released back int o the wild without an reliance on humans. So this meant that we could not feed or touch the seals, however it was interesting enough to watch them and ask our guide questions.

Once the seals are stronger and ready for release, they are moved to the four difference pools in the rescue centre. The last pool they stay in before their release is completely sectioned off from visitors, to reduce their interaction with humans and prepare them for reentering the wild. We were able to see two different seals swimming in the pools.

While it wasn’t a particularly long tour, we were in and out within an hour, and while it wasn’t the most action packed experience, it was still a wonderful way for the girls to learn about seals and the things that threaten their natural environments. They love anything animal related and it’s great to be able to see and learn about animals that are not common to Australia.

If anyone is reading this and planning a trip of your own, there is an aquatic centre and adventure park with highropes course right next to the Seal Rescue Centre which could be an option to fill our your day in the area.

COUNTY WEXFORD - Dunbrody Famine Ship, exploring Irish emmigration history

In the lead up to our trip, I did some research into my family lineage. I have been told that my ancestry was made up of English and Irish heritage, but I was interested to know specifics before coming to Ireland. So I signed up to Ancestory.com.au and did some hunting around. 

If you haven’t ever used ancestory.com.au before, I’d highly recommend it. It was so intriguing to be able to trace all the generations back until around the end of the 1700’s. Ancestory.com.au draws on data from Australian Births Deaths and Marriages, as well as immigration data and gravestone registries. It’s also able to tap into English and Irish census and baptism data. All you need to provide to get started is the full names and rough years of birth of your grandparents, and then Ancestory.com.au will start to populate all your great grandparents through out the previous generations. (I’m also just trusting the accuracy of ancestry.com.au at this point, I haven’t gone any deeper and crosschecked any other data at this point.)

I had to go back sometimes 5 or 6 generations until I found a grandparent that emigrated from Ireland to Australia. I even discovered at lest three great (x4 ) grandfathers who were convicts! (I’m not sure if that’s really something to be proud of and I’m sure most Australians can make this claim)  But many of my Irish ancestors left in the mid 1800’s around the time of the Great Hunger, which brings me to the topic of this blog post, our visit to the Dunbrody Famine Ship in New Ross. 

The Dunbrody that sits in the harbour of New Ross is a 1:1 replica of the actual Dunbrody, a merchant ship that was converted into a passenger ship and transported Irish emigrants to North America during the 19th Century. Many Irish people chose to, or were perhaps given no choice but to, emigrate to ‘the new world’ at this time because they faced such hardship and injustice.

Irish history is incredibly complex and marred with much conflict and turmoil. While I’ve been here in Ireland, I’ve been able to learn about Irish history from the Irish perspective, rather than the British perspective that many Australian would have been taught, so I will try my best to honour the experience of the Irish while retelling it. 

During the 19th Century, Ireland was under the oppression of British who had sort to incorporate Ireland into the British Empire. The Irish fought against this from 1919 - 1921 during the Irish War of Independence but afterward the English still took over vast quantities of land and forced the native Irish to pay rent for small farming plots. 

The Irish farmers relied heavily on potatoes as their main source of food, however, year after year from 1845 - 1849, a blight infected all the potato crops, leading to poverty, evictions and starvation for the poor class of Irish farmers. However during this time, Ireland was still exporting a surplus of food (meats, grains etc ) to Britain. So it does pose the question as to weather it this period of history can be referred to as a famine or something more deliberate or sinister like a genocide. Or perhaps the British just saw it as an opportunity to discriminate against and weaken the native Irish population. Th result was that over a 1 million people died of starvation or disease and another million emigrated to the USA, Canada or Australia. Nowadays, the term The Great Hunger seems like a more appropriate way to describe this period of history.

 I was able to trace my ancestors to areas of County Carlow (like the towns of Borris and Tullow, not far from where we were staying ) and County Wexford. (The town of New Ross were the Dunbrody is locations in on the boarder of County Wexford and County Carlow.) as well as County Wicklow, Tipperary, Cork and Galway, Antrim and Armagh. Whilst The Dunbrody focuses on the journey to the America’s, not Australia, it does provide a bit of insight into what the conditions of anyone emigrated from Ireland around that time would have had to endure. The journey to Australia was much longer, with probably more treacherous  seas. 

The Dunbrody experiences take you on a journey of what it would have been like for passengers embarking on a passage to Savannah, Georgia in the USA. It starts with a video detailing the conditions Irish people were facing and what lead them to take their chances on ships like the Dunbrody, which were often referred to as ‘coffin ships’. 

After the video, we were lead onto the ship and given a tour above and below deck. The guide spoke as if we are actually ‘steerage’ the lower class passengers, showing us our sleeping quarters and informing us about our rations and allocated time above deck each day (which was only 30 minutes). Two other guides acted in character of some of the other ‘passengers’ who were onboard. One girl played the part of a mother who had 5 children onboard and who’s husband tragically didn’t make it off the ship alive. 

The conditions passenger had to endure for the 6 - 9 week journey over to North America was so heart wrenching and disgusting! I can not even begin to imagine what it would the been like to live below deck on biscuit rations, surrounded by other people, no showers, no toilets other than a communal pot. In the photos above you can see the bunks below deck, there would have been 4 adults per square ‘cubicle’ 

It was a very eye opening experience. I can only assume that my Irish ancestors were on a similar ship in order to come to Australia. It’s very confronting to think about. 

After the tour on the ship finished, were are able to explore it on our own before leaving through the final exhibition that details some of the more famous Americans that have Irish ancestry, most notably, the Kennedy family. The Kennedy family actually have a historic homestead / museum not from New Ross and were a part of the project to create the Dunbrody Famine Ship Experience. I was tempted to go to the Kennedy Homestead but I knew it would of been zero interest to the kids. The cafe in New Ross that we had breakfast in had all sorts of historic photos of JFK and the Kennedy Family. 

Overall, the girls and Braino really enjoyed visiting The Dunbrody. Hallie especially has enjoyed drawing pictures and creating her own stories about the Dunbrody. She asked to find a book about the Dunbrody at the library but all I could find was one about a family’s experience during the Great Hunge; having to go to a workhouse after getting evicted, which was equally as interesting. Braino and I have enjoyed piecing together our knowledge of Irish history and politics through museums and experience like The Dunbrody, and I think it was a great way for the girls to gain a bit of an understanding into Australia’s history and our own family history. 

COUNTY WEXFORD: Secret Valley Wildlife Park

Earlier into our stay in County Carlow, we took advantage of a very sunny day and visited the Secret Valley Wildlife Park. The highlight were the Capybaras, the girls were very excited to see the worlds largest rodent in person.

Secret Valley Wildlife Park is a privately owned nature reserve. It has some of the typical farm animals like ponies, donkeys and rabbits but it’s also home to a lot of rescued primates like lemurs, macaques and tamarins. (which I surprisingly didn’t take any photos of.) We really enjoyed the animals talks that the zookeepers did for the primates. It’s eye opening to hear about the awful conditions some monkeys end up in due to the exotic pet trade in Europe. It’s not really an issue in Australia due to our strict animal quarantine laws but many people in Europe buy small primates as pets and quickly realises how inappropriate they are and then abandoned them. So it’s nice to see a place like Secret Valley Wildlife Park providing a home and caring for them.

We also enjoyed hearing about the otters, meerkats and porcupine. And of course petting the bunnies and seeing the prairie dogs. There is a great cafe onsite with a big indoor inflatable jumping castle / obstacle course that the girls loves.

The grounds were really, large with a big kids playground and we were also given a scavenger hunt worksheet were the kids had to locate various different types of trees.

The girls really love animals, so any experience like this is always a great day out. We did skip the London Zoo and the Dublin Zoo due to the prices and the fact that major zoos can features very similar animals. But Secret Valley Wildlife Park was a great smaller location were we are able to see and learn a lot about the animals. We’d totally recommend visiting, especially if you have a day with lovely sunny weather.