Ireland day 0579. Sunday 30 April 2023- Rose Garden *

Ireland day 0579. Sunday 30 April 2023- Rose Garden

Today’s summary	Val was at work and I joined the Walking Club for a stroll from Clontarf Road station to St Anne’s Park and on to Sutton. Hip working well. Got caught in a non-forecast rain shower but otherwise very enjoyable day out
Today’s weather	A real spring sunshine-and-showers day. Warm sun interspersed with heavy downpours followed by brilliant blue skies. Light westerly wind. Appx 15C

Today’s overview location (The blue 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): Clontarf Rd to Sutton via St Annes Park and Rose Garden DWC

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

Val was back at work so after a relatively early start, we had breakfast and she dashed off to the museum.

Shortly afterwards, I took the DART down to Clontarf Road for a short walk with the Club, up to St Anne’s Park (and beyond). The weather forecast said there was just a 20% chance of a light shower at 4pm, so I didn’t bother taking my main waterproof- only a very light jacket. Anyway by about 1pm the heavens opened and it bucketed down, so we all had to seek refuge in a bus shelter. So much for the forecast! Anyway it was a great day out and the weather for once didn’t feel Baltic. When the sun shone, it felt quite mild and the greenery scintillated with that peculiarly Irish emerald incandescence.

We eventually made it to St Anne’s Park, where we stopped for lunch and had a look round the rose garden – which was just beginning to come into bloom. Most of the party headed back to Clontarf from there, but I decided to go on further up the coast to Sutton, where I caught a convenient 102 back to Malahide (after getting a cup of tea and a scone in the station café first).

A really enjoyable day out – and I realised that over the last three days I have walked the whole coastline from Donabate to Clontarf. I’m quite pleased with that and the new hip seems to be holding up well, but I think I ought to take a few days off now, or else my physiotherapist might have a fit. Time for a refreshing G&T now!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Start of the walk – Clontarf Rd DART station	Interesting graffiti on an electricity street-box

The iconic Poolbeg chimneys from the Clontarf promenade	Sheltering from the rain that wasn’t supposed to happen. Thank goodness for bus shelters

A sycamore tree in St Anne’s park, showing the interesting barrel distortion of the 13mm ultrawide iPhone lens	I think my April rose photo is safe – they are popping out everywhere now. Apparently the St Anne’s Rose garden is at its best in June

Pergola in St Anne’s Rose Garden

This is exactly the same as the previous image but larger size, just to see how WordPress assigns file names to different size images