Ireland day 0613. Saturday 03 June 2023- Sutton Howth *

Ireland day 0613. Saturday 03 June 2023- Sutton Howth

Today’s summary	Took the bus to Sutton the walked anticlockwise right round Howth head. Beautiful flowery day. Caught the train and bus back
Today’s weather	A re-run of the last few days – dry, bright and sunny. In fact the sun shone in an absolutely cloudless sky all day. Light north easterly wind. Appx 17C

Today’s overview location (The grey mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The orange 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): Sutton Howth loop walk

Commentary

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

We had another completely free day today (hooray!) so decided to take the bus and train down to Howth and walk along the coast, back to Malahide.

But as soon as we got in the bus, we could see that the tide was fully in, making several of the coastal sections tricky. So, at Val’s suggestion, instead of the coast walk we decided to get off the bus at Sutton and didn’t wait for the train to Howth. Rather, we walked straight from the station down to Sutton Cross, and then started on an anticlockwise circuit of the headland, finishing up in Howth. From Howth, at the end, we took the train / bus route back to Malahide.

The walk itself was superb – so it was definitely an excellent decision by Val. The sun shone brilliantly all day – to the extent that I had to put some sun cream on (factor 100, as it happens – normally I avoid sun cream as I’m not sure it’s all that good for you – but the irradiation today, just three weeks from midsummer, was extreme). I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite so many wild flowers in bloom together in one place in Ireland – Valerian, ceanothus, echium, eschscholzia, rosa and armeria, to name but six. Magnificent. The sea was blue and there were loads of hardy swimmers and sunbathers adorning the beaches. OK it was pretty busy – especially on the east and north sides of the headland – but we could forgive the crowds as it was such a lovely day.

Once back in the flat, we enjoyed the rest of the organic salmon we prepared a couple of days ago, with some fresh Irish strawberries. A truly summery day!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The Luí na Gréine standing stone – installed on the Howth tobolo in 2012 to commemorate the first settlement of the Howth area 5000 years ago. There’s a seat against a wall a few metres back and if you sit at a specially engraved point on the seat on midwinter’s day, you can watch the sun set directly behind the monolith at about 15:55pm	Cloudy fields of vivid Valerian

Just behind the Martello Tower, setting off on the southern leg of the circuit	*Beautiful drifts of sea thrift, Armeria maritima, leading down to the blue sea*

*White and pink Hottentot Fig (Carpobrotus edulis) with a few yellow calendulas thrown in for good measure*	Looking back towards the Baily lighthouse

Magnificent Echiums – made it feel just like the Canary islands