Ireland day 0313. Sunday 07 August 2022- BrayGreystones

Today’s summary	Took the bus and DART down to Bray to meet the walking club in Finbees café then clifftop ramble along the coast to Greystones. A lovely day out with good views, great weather and excellent company. Finished off with refreshing beers in Bochelli’s
Today’s weather	Dry and bright. Plenty of sun in the afternoon. Almost no wind. Appx. 21C

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The green 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): Bray Greystones walk DWC

Commentary

Val and I have walked from Bray to Greystones, along the clifftop path, several times in the past, but it’s one of those paths that is absolutely lovely and I don’t think you could ever do it too often.

So when the Bray-Greystones walk appeared on the walking club agenda today, Val and I didn’t have to think too hard before deciding to head down the DART to Bray to join the outing. Especially as today was another lovely bright sunny day which just cried out for you to step into the fresh air and go exploring.

There’s a direct line on the DART from Malahide to Bray and Greystones but the way the timings work on a Sunday morning meant that it was actually more convenient for us to catch the 102 bus down the coast to Sutton then connect with a DART coming through on the Howth branch line. Despite the relatively convoluted journey, all worked smoothly and the whole thing only cost us €2 each, which was considerably better value than my disastrously expensive trip back from Lidl a couple of days ago.

Once down at Bray, we met up with the group at Finbees café for a coffee and (and I know you are expecting me to say “scone” next but stand by to be disappointed:) a sausage roll. Val has persuaded me that whereas all carbs are bad, sugary carbs are more bad than proteiny carbs so the cream, jam and butter scone (what could possibly be unhealthy about that) went out the window to be replaced by an entirely guilt free – and perfectly delicious – sausage roll instead.

Once we were suitably caloried-up, we set out south along the promenade, which was thronging today. Indeed that was a bit of a theme for the day – everyone was out enjoying the summery weather, and the clifftop path, which is never deserted even at the quietest of times, was particularly congested today. Still, we weren’t in a hurry and so enjoyed the amble along with everyone else. There’s always lots to see and every season and every time of day it’s different. This time, we spotted a herd of at least five seals lounging around on the rocks far below the railway line – too distant to photograph properly, unfortunately, but a fine sight through the binoculars. Though every time I see seals I do wonder exactly what they do all day. As far as I can tell, they seem to spend much of the time just blobbing around and not really doing very much at all. Quite a commendable existence actually.

Midway along the path, there has been a landslide and the path has been theoretically closed with a couple of fences. But the landslide happened two years ago, and no effort seems to have been made to remediate it, so everyone just bypasses the fences and skirts round the landslip. The path is still very wide where the incident occurred and feels quite safe – though I’m not sure I would feel quite so confident in heading that way after heavy rain which might have destabilised it further. Anyway, we survived the tectonics and safely made it to the other side.

Shortly after the landslide, the path drops down into the outskirts of Greystones and you can branch off the cliff path along a track that leads to an unmanned crossing of the railway and then into some fields. Just round a corner, you quite unexpectedly come across a little area of carefully manicured grass with a few picnic tables and a ruined church (actually it’s St Crispin’s Cell) set in it. I don’t think I would ever have found it in a million years – and it’s not marked on any map – if someone in the club hadn’t known where it was. Anyway it made a perfect spot for a late lunch.

After a quick look round the ruin – which is dedicated to the patron saint of shoemakers – we rejoined the cliff path and were soon down in Greystones. It’s a nice town, in many ways a mirror image of Malahide. Like its more northerly cousin, it’s on the coast, on the rail line, and about as far south of Dublin as Malahide is north. It’s also a prosperous commuter town though it seems perhaps, on first glance at least, to have retained a bit more of its original charm than Malahide has. I could even imagine us living there one day, maybe. Though I imagine rental property is probably at least as scarce – and expensive – as it is up here in Malahide. Well something to think about perhaps sometime in an idle moment some day in the future.

No outing with the walking club is complete without a visit to the pub at the end, and today we ended up in Bochelli’s – which is actually an Italian restaurant but it does do a nice pint of Peroni. The train timings worked well – we had an hour to enjoy our drinks, before catching a DART which sped us back to Malahide in what seemed like no time at all. But that is possibly an illusion because I must shamefacedly admit that both Val and I fell almost immediately asleep as the train set off with its soporific gentle diddly-dock. So we barely noticed much about the journey back at all, in fact.

Now it’s time for dinner so I’ll sign off. More adventures to come tomorrow, no doubt.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Setting out from Bray around noon today. A perfect day for sitting on the beach (provided you bring something to sit on, as it’s very stony here). Lots of people out swimming and I didn’t see any evidence of jellyfish	Iconic view of the railway from the lookout point midway along the cliff path. I do hope readers will recall the details of the tragic accident on 9 August 1867 which led to the line being diverted inland and the second tunnel, visible at the top of the photo, constructed. There was a herd of five grey seals lolloping around on the rocks below this lookout – they looked impressive through the binoculars but unfortunately too far away to photograph properly. (And yes, “herd” really is the correct collective name for a group of seals, as google taught me this evening)

Pale corn waves rippling to a shore, the shadowy cliffs of elm beyond. Well not exactly but you get the idea. The barley certainly looked fully ripe in this field, and judging from the cut straw in a field on the other side of the path, must be next in line for harvesting.	Heading to St Crispin’s Cell (the ruin on the top left) just before the path reaches Greystones. It’s quite hidden away so I would never have known about it if we weren’t with the club. There are a couple of picnic benches nearby and it’s a good spot for lunch. The “cell” was built in the 15th or 16th century, probably on the site of an older building. St Crispin was the patron saint of shoemakers, of all things.

The Happy Pear in Greystones is a lovely vegan deli and restaurant, run by twin brothers David and Stephen Flynn. It’s not cheap, but the stuff they sell looks lovely and we succumbed to the temptation of some delicious looking coconut delicacies dipped in chocolate. Basically Bounty Bars but ten times the price. Well – we deserved a treat after all that weird stuff from Lidl.	Waiting for the DART back to Malahide. It’s a fantastic service, putting beautiful places all the way down the east coast – like Greystones – within 75 effortless minutes of Malahide

Rather smart looking chunky boat “Dignity” in Greystones harbour. A bit of googling reveals that it is a “potting catamaran”, that it was made by G Smyth Boats Ltd, Kilkeel, Co Down in 2019, and operates out of Dun Laoghaire. I’m not exactly sure what a “potting catamaran” does but among other things I think the boat runs charter fishing trips