Ireland day 1562. Wednesday 07 January 2026- Going South

Today’s summary	We were supposed to be going in the car to the UK today to deliver some belongings into storage. But the ferry to Holyhead was cancelled so after spending half the day at Dublin port we postponed our trip and will go next week instead. Came back to Malahide, had beans on toast for lunch, then did our Hill and Coast walk as consolation. Treated ourselves to dinner out at “Jaipur” restaurant in James’ Terrace in the evening.
Today’s weather	Cool grey and damp with some rain in the afternoon. Hardly any wind. Appx 6c

Today’s overview location (The red mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Replacement Walk Service

Commentary

Well that did not go according to plan. Today was a real case of the best laid plans of mice and men going significantly awry.

In our case the plans had involved a brief trip to the UK in the car, taking some of our bulkiest possessions back to be put into storage. Accordingly we had a Stena ferry booked to take us from Dublin to Holyhead at 10:15 this morning, to start our journey south.

So we duly pitched up at the port in good time, and waited. And waited and waited and waited. Stena did a pretty poor job of advising everyone what was going on and actually we got most of our information from the RTE website.

It turned out that what had happened was that the previous Stena sailing to ours had crashed into the dock at Holyhead and managed to hole itself below the waterline. Everyone got off safely but basically the ferry was stuck so the whole port of Holyhead was shut down for the day.

Eventually we learned that the port would “probably” reopen this evening and our sailing, rather than being cancelled, was “simply” being delayed but twelve hours and a quarter hours and would depart at 10:30pm this evening. That would have conveniently delivered us to Holyhead bright and early at 2am, giving us plenty of time for the five hour drive to the storage depot in Hertfordshire, getting us there in good time for opening at 9am. Then of course we would have to turn straight around again to drive five hours back to Holyhead ready for a ferry on Friday morning. And to add extra interest the chances are we would have been driving back in a blizzard, as heavy snow is forecast for the UK tomorrow afternoon

We considered that option for a good five nanoseconds before rejecting it as ludicrous. So instead we went to the Stena office at the port (which was staffed by just one clerk dealing with an entire ferry full of disgruntled passengers) and postponed our entire trip – including accommodation – by a week.

So rather bruised by a morning hanging around on a ferry terminal at approximately 0.1 degrees above freezing, we drove back to Malahide, put the central heating on, and made ourselves some beans on toast with a cup of tea.

Once we were back on a slightly more even keel, I did a bit more work on our tax return (every cloud has an even darker lining) then we decided to cut our losses and go on a walk.

We just reverted to our usual hill and coast outing. Today it actually turned out to be more enjoyable than some recent excursions, because although it was cool dull and wet, it wasn’t windy.

It was dark by the time we regained the flat, and, rather than starting cooking we decided to award ourselves a further treat. We have booked dinner at “Jaipur” Indian restaurant James’ Terrace. Neither of us have been before and we’ve been keen to try it out for some time now. So I’m signing off now to go and make myself look beautiful. I’ll report back tomorrow, which is, of course, another day.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The long and winding road to redemption	Putting a brave face on it in the demesne

Lambay lurking in the limelight	Tonight’s destination of choice!



Short, to the point, and totally unhelpful. Thanks, Stena