Ireland day 0614. Sunday 04 June 2023- Portrane Coast DWC *

Ireland day 0614. Sunday 04 June 2023- Portrane Coast DWC

Today’s summary	A short walk with the Club up the Burrow peninsula from the Shoreline Hotel at Portrane. Nice sunny day and ice-creams at the end
Today’s weather	Weatherwise, today was an exact re-run of yesterday. Clear blue sky and full sun all day. Light north easterly wind. Appx 18C

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): Portrane north coast walk DWC

Commentary

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

Another fabulous day, weather-wise, and to make things even better, Val had a day off work, too.

There was a club walk going on just over the estuary at Portrane, so we collected a friend from Portmarnock, then drove the short distance round the Broadmeadow lagoon to join the group at the Shoreline hotel. After the pre-requisite coffee and scones had been enjoyed, we set off north up the coast towards the Burrow peninsula.

At the southern end, near the hotel, it seemed like the world and his wife was out enjoying the sun and sea. But as we got further up the coast, the crowds thinned out a bit and it became quite a lot quieter. We stopped for lunch in the dunes near the northern end of the peninsula – and I think we were all slightly taken aback by the extensive coastal erosion that seemed to have taken place all the way up the coast. I guess the sea is washing away the sand – and perhaps depositing it at Bull Island to the south. The makeshift sea defences along the way appeared fairly ineffective in preventing the southwards drift.

Once again, the flowers along the way were stunning, and the return walk, in the full sun, had a distinctly Mediterranean feel to it. We all felt the need to avail ourselves of ice-creams from one of the many vans clustered near the hotel at the end- a luxury which felt particularly well deserved after a full day in the sun.

So now it’s fish and chips for tea – an appropriate finale to a proper seaside day.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


On the way up to Tower Bay Beach, about 2km north of the Shoreline Hotel at Portrane (Corballis)	Looking over the rocky coast towards Lambay Island

“Sea-Bees” apparently. they are concrete hexagons about 1.5m across, designed to break up the impact of the sea, and slow coastal erosion. Judging by the state of collapse of the coast, especially a bit further north, they have been, at best, only partially successful	The rapidly crumbling coast heading to the top of the Burrow peninsula

The decay of the shore has been a boon to the swifts, which were nesting in the sandy cliifs	heading up north from the hotel, at the start of the walk

An amazing field of daisies, in the grounds of St Ita’s hospital. It’s not a genuine round tower, instead, according to Google it: “is a 160 year old memorial to George Evans MP, erected by his wife Sophia Evans Parnell in 1844“