Ireland day 0911. Wednesday 27 March 2024- Wet Newbridge *

Ireland day 0911. Wednesday 27 March 2024- Wet Newbridge

Today’s summary	Walked round to Newbridge via the lagoon-side path. Much of the bit on the North Shore was under water so I had to paddle. Eventually it became too deep so I had to walk along the Hearse Road. Refreshment at Newbridge then train back to Malahide. Collecting Val from the airport later this evening
Today’s weather	Cloudy but with some longer periods of brilliant sunshine interspersed with occasional vicious downpours of icy rain. Light south easterly breeze. Appx 7c

Today’s overview location (The green mark shows the location of my route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where I walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Wet walk to Newbridge

Commentary

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

The last time I walked to Newbridge was the day before I started work. I promised myself that once I had finished, I would walk it again. But life seemed to get in the way and a variety of other commitments prevented me from getting round to it. So today, as I had a more or less free day, I decided to give it a go.

Before I set off, though, I did have another attempt to sort out papers. I made more progress this time, but there’s still quite a lot left to do. But there’s only so much fun you can have in a day, so I stopped after an hour or so and got my things ready for my walk.

It was a bit tricky to know what to take today, as the weather was being rather mercurial. But lately I have been finding I have been getting uncomfortably sweaty on some of my outings, so I decided to follow Val’s maxim of “be bold, start out cold”. I chose a thin woollen long sleeve t-shirt and Decathlon fleece, but packed a down jacket and waterproofs in my bag as well, in case the weather took a turn for the worse. In the end, I never needed them (and didn’t get sweaty).

Pretty much as soon as I got to the Broadmeadow Lagoon, I could see I was going to have a problem. The shore was mostly submerged by a high tide, meaning that I would have difficulty getting round the north shore without getting wet feet. And that turned out to be the case. Even the bits of the Flood Road along the north side which are normally dry were under water today and had swans swimming over them.

But I wasn’t going to be defeated. I took my socks off, rolled up my trousers, and plunged on. I made it as far as the end of Ballymadrough Road but I could see that the next section to Kilcrea would be inaccessible to even the most enthusiastic wader. So that meant I had to go up to the Hearse Road and head for the back entrance to Newbridge. Eventually I got fed up with dicing with death in the face of oncoming traffic on this busy road, so I jumped over the hedge into the adjoining field (sorry Farmer) and walked along the edge.

I finally made it safely to Newbridge and with perfect timing the heavens opened and an icy deluge followed just as I got into the café. I rather enjoyed watching the downpour as I savoured my coffee and croissant and fortunately, by the time I had finished, the taps had been turned off so I was able to venture out.

The remaining walk to the railway station at Donabate I despatched quickly, and a train for the short journey back to Malahide appeared only two minutes after I got onto the platform. Perfect timing, yet again. Once back in the flat, I had a cup of tea and started thinking about what to have for dinner. Val gets back this evening (hooray) and I’m meeting her at the airport around 7pm. It will be great to see her again – and I’m sure she will be ready for something to eat!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Looking surprisingly cheerful, considering the waterlogged state of the path	The Gaybrook estuary into the lagoon. I was already beginning to get a strong impression that the water level was going to be high

and indeed it was. The Flood Road was – as the name suggests – flooded by the tide. It runs to the right hand side of the wall and I estimated it to be under at least half a meter of water. Far too deep to paddle easily	Reward for a challenging walk to the Newbridge tea shop

I cunningly timed my arrival at the café to coincide with a huge downpour of sleety rain outside. Chance obviously had nothing to do with it 😉	Transport back to Malahide rather conveniently arrived 2 minutes after I got to Donabate Station

This was just the shallow bit