Ireland day 0761. Sunday 29 October 2023- Scotland 4 *

Ireland day 0761. Sunday 29 October 2023- Scotland 4

Today’s summary	A leisurely morning with our friends in the Cairngorm mountains. Left fairly early for the airport as the roads were flooded after incessant rain. Val flew to London and I returned to Dublin. Both of us arrived uneventfully and on time
Today’s weather	Incessant rain in Scotland and in London, dry here in Dublin this evening. Light south easterly wind. Appx 11c

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): Night Walk and Engineering

Commentary

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

Today was the last day of our holiday in Scotland. We had a leisurely morning before heading off to the airport – particularly so as we had gained an hour in bed as the clocks went back last night.

Anyway, eventually it was time to set off and we decided not to leave it too late as another night of incessant rain had left everywhere soaking wet and there were abundant weather alerts warning of flooded roads. We didn’t particularly want to get stuck. Anyway, we made it to the airport easily enough, though some stretches of the road were underwater(!), and had plenty of time for our flights.

I say “flights” in the plural because although we were both scheduled to depart at 15:40, Val was flying to London whereas I was returning to Dublin. Val wanted to tie up some loose ands related to the house sale, whereas I wanted to be back here in Ireland. Anyway, despite the appalling weather, we both set off pretty much on time and landed at our destinations without incident. En route I got some good views of the Irish coast once we were below the cloud level. We flew just to the south of Malahide and you can see the Broadmeadow lagoon and a bit of Portmarnock in the banner image at the top of this blog.

Once back in Dublin, I got a cup of tea and a banana at the airport (I was starving!) then caught the 102 and was back in Malahide in no time. And now, as it is at last not raining (I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to be dry), I’m going to head out for a bit of a leg-stretch, then drop in at the shop to get something to eat for the next few days of bachelor-living in Malahide. Next instalment tomorrow!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


It’s an airport, like all the rest.	Leaving behind rainy Highland

If you look carefully you can just about make out the Alisa Craig islet in the gloom in the middle of the photo	Passing over Northern Ireland, with Strangford Lough on the left

Halloween!	Massive engineering works up by the station tonight. A completely new set of points being installed -= and all the track in the vicinity has been removed. Impressive, but noisy..

I returned to Dublin on the tiny Aer Lingus propeller plane on the right. Val headed off to London a few minutes after me, on the EasyJet plane on the left. Both flights were pretty much on time – a bit of a miracle considering the awful weather