Ireland day 0584. Friday 05 May 2023- Howth Again *

Ireland day 0584. Friday 05 May 2023- Howth Again

Today’s summary	Walked down the coast to Howth with Val, then had a video call with friends in the UK in the evening
Today’s weather	Mainly dry after overnight rain, except for a brief shower early afternoon. Plenty of sun. Strong to gale force south easterly wind. Appx 14C

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): Howth via coast again with Val

Commentary

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

We got up relatively (for us) early and Val went off to town while I corrected the typos in my Ice Ages paper, getting it ready to submit. After an early lunch (cold beef salad followed by sliced fresh orange in gin with blueberry sauce – very exotic) we decided that as it looked decent outside, we would walk together down the coast to Howth.

It was a good decision although the 20% chance of rain did in fact translate into a 100% certainty (I should know this by now, in Ireland!) but the shower in the early afternoon only lasted a few minutes. It turned out to be an enjoyable walk in the bright afternoon with some decent long sunny spells.

But we suffered from a strong cold south easterly headwind, which made the going a bit harder than it should have been. I have done this walk three times recently, and every time there has been a strong cold headwind, so perhaps this is just the norm for this part of the world (though I don’t remember it being quite as bad last year). We stopped en route for tea and cakes at the station café in Sutton, then after a couple of hours more walking, pitched up in Howth where we headed straight to the Insomnia coffee shop for more refreshment.

Once replenished with tea and flapjack, we walked over to the station and caught a waiting DART which speedily took us back to Sutton. From there, we only had a short (but cold) wait for a few more minutes until the 102 arrived to whisk us back to Malahide. In the evening, we had a light dinner supplemented with a rather nice bottle of Cremant de Bourgogne and a chat with friends in France as we spoke. Val has an early start tomorrow, so it’s off to bed now. Another successful day!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Up in the castle woods, just after we set off. Complete with obligatory trekking poles	Showing the way through the woods

My Rose for May. There are plenty of them popping out – so I think my monthly rose-quest should be good until at least November	Coming up to the promenade between Baldoyle and Sutton

Fishing vessel spectacularly in dry-dock in Howth	Tea (and biscuit) in Howth at the end. Felt well-earned, after being having been battered by the wind for the last four hours

Belatedly celebrating our wedding anniversary from yesterday!