New Name and Logo

We have been reviewing our business over the last few months, seeing ourselves as others see us, and one of the results was a revamp of our branding. We have a new logo which will begin to appear on all our stationery and digital media. We like the new logo and small alteration to our name. You will know us as KippureEstate but we have beautiful holiday homes here that we wanted to let people know about so we changed our trading name to Kippure Estate & Lodges. The new logo is simpler, plain black and white with the mountains of Seefin, Seefingan and Kippure in the background.  We hope you like it. But for our Education and Adventure Departments it’s business as usual, as we continue to work on improving the mountain experience for all our students and teachers after making their way to one of the most beautiful valleys in Wicklow being overlooked by those very same mountains.

End of school season drawing near

The primary school tour season has begun in earnest. We are bursting at the seams with our new Pirate/Celtic Warrior Training days in addition to our 5.5 hour adventure days and 3 hour adventure days – great news indeed in the current climate. Our high and low ropes courses have been a magnet for school groups over the years and continue to be so. The popularity has caused teachers to start enquiring about availability as early as January, and this year we even had an enquiry in November! So in case you couldn’t understand why we were booked up when you called in April, that’s why!

We are delighted to see our younger clientele in such numbers and we wish the older students all the best in their final exams as they head off into the world of adulthood.

Erosion is Active!

The lone tree near the middle of this photo has since fallen over
due to erosion of the soil around the roots.

The river used to be over beneath the curved bank starting on the right hand side

but is now clearly flowing down the left of the photo.

 

With the post primary school year coming to a close at the end of May we will soon see the last of our teenage students visiting us for their Leaving Cert fieldstudies before they break up for the summer holidays. We have run many of the 2013 Geography studies already this year. The appearance of our early stage river location has changed following the floods of last October and has added interest to the study in that the bedload brought down by the Athdown River during 24 October 2011 landed in one of our lower fields and changed the course of the river nearby. The trees that were on the bank are loosing the soil around their roots and one has fallen over already. Erosion really is an active process in this area!

We're growing!

Outdoor Experiential Learning

Kippure Estate’s Education Department is delighted to welcome a new member of staff, Yaqoub BouAynaya from Dublin, to the department as Administrative Officer. He joined the department in February and has been a great support answering phones and advising teachers on the best school tours for their pupils. He certainly has been kept busy as the school tour booking season has started in earnest. We have introduced so many new packages to cover all budgets that it takes time to go through them all. Last year we introduced ‘Map & Compass’ and ‘Bush Craft’ skills where students learn a new skill; this year we have introduced the shorter 1.5 hour and 2 hour ‘Fun & Run’ and ‘Fun & Run Eggstra’ to our programme list. These are great for short tours where time is limited or the purse strings won’t stretch to a 3 hour session.