Ireland day 1047. Saturday 10 August 2024- Dalkey Island

Today’s summary	Made a spur-of-the-minute decision this morning to take a boat trip to Dalkey Island, on the Coliemore Harbour ferry. Quite busy but a lovely island and a beautiful sunny day. Cup of tea in Dalkey before taking the DART back to Malahide
Today’s weather	Sunny dry and warm (I haven’t said that very often in the last three years). Light westerly wind. Appx 20c

Today’s overview location (The green 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): Dalkey Island

Commentary

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

Sometimes the best things you do are the unplanned things, and today definitely fell into the “unplanned” category.

When we woke up bright and early this morning, it was actually raining, but it soon cleared up and the sun came out. We didn’t have any specific plans for the day but it looked far too nice to stay inside. So we cast our minds to the unwritten list of things that we still haven’t done in Ireland, and Val remembered that a visit to Dalkey Island was high up on that list.

Well that was our day decided. Once we had had breakfast, made our packed lunches, and completed our usual morning ablutions, we walked over to the station and caught the next DART south.

Dalkey Island is, unsurprisingly, just off the Dublin coast at Dalkey and you get to it by boat from Coliemore Harbour, a ten minute walk from Dalkey DART station. We were lucky that Emma (a boat) was ready and waiting for us when we got to the harbour so we were on board and ocean bound with no wait it all.

Actually the ocean crossing is all of about 200 metres and we were on the island in about five minutes. There were quite a few people over there already – the sun had brought out the crowds. But we managed to find a good spot in the sun, out of the wind, and well away from everyone else, to have our lunch.

As soon as we’d finished our sandwiches (two-thirds off yellow-sticker chicken focaccia from Tesco last night) we set out to explore the island. It isn’t very big but there’s quite a lot packed in. A Martello Tower and fort dating back to the Napoleonic wars in the early nineteenth century, and a ruined chapel which might date back to the seventh century. There are Viking relics there and some evidence of neolithic occupation six thousand years ago.

Before getting back on the boat to the mainland, we paused for a while to watch the seals and to finish off our coffee from the trusty Thermos.

We left after a couple of hours on the island and caught the ferry back. We didn’t head straight for the station, but first stopped off to watch the death-defying swimmers in Coliemore harbour (jumping off the high cliffs into the shallow water was definitely not for me) and then dropped into a café in Dalkey for tea and flapjack.

As soon as we had suitably topped up with caffeine and sugar, we walked up to the station and made our way back to Malahide. The evening, like so many recently, will be spent on the Olympics and probably with an episode of “The Wire” (if we are feeling robust enough).

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Enticing sign on the approach to Coliemore harbour	Heading up to the Martello Tower from the landing jetty

Gun emplacements, left over from the Napoleonic War era, behind the walls of the fort	*The same tree mallow (Malva arborea), which was growing on the fort walls, as we saw on Rockabill*

Part of the island was cordoned off for the breeding season. Apparently Birdwatch Ireland has enticed Roseate Terns to nest on one of the off-islands, too	Approaching Coliemore Harbour on the way back – it was full of swimmers and death-defying cliff-jumpers when we returned

Setting sail for our (five minute) voyage to Dalkey Island