Ireland day 1146. Sunday 17 November 2024- Kilquade DWC

Today’s summary	Took a train from Malahide to Kilcoole via Connolly to join a group of nine from the Walking Club for a walk in the Kilquade area. Despite long rail delays outbound and on the return, still managed to fit in a good walk up the Rock of Kilcoole, and along the Mass Path to the Arboretum. The weather stayed dry while we were out, though rain started as we were in the train on the way back. A very enjoyable and sociable day. Val was at Wonderlights so didn’t join us today.
Today’s weather	Damp first thing and rain in the evening but dry and quite bright inbetween. Light westerly wind. Appx 10c

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): Kilquade DWC

Commentary

Val was working at Wonderlights today so elected to spend the the time until she went to work relaxing in the flat. A particularly wise idea given that the building fire alarm had gone off again last night, so we were both feeling pretty tired when the 7:30 my phone alarm woke us again this morning.

I, on the other hand, dragged myself into life and got my things ready for a Club walk in Co. Wicklow. Our destination wasn’t the usual mountains, though, but a walk in the coastal hinterlands from Kilcoole.

The big advantage of this walk is that you can get to the start by train, so there’s no need to drive. With all my gear eventually assembled, and cups of tea drunk, I wandered over to Malahide station to catch the 0923 diesel to Connolly. I travelled in with a friend who was taking the same train, so we used the journey time to have a good chat and to put the world to rights.

We arrived at Connolly with plenty of time to spare, so got a coffee and refreshments at the station café. Everything had been going swimmingly well so far, but at this stage, things started to go wrong as our onward train to Kilcoole left 40 minutes late. The driver didn’t exactly hurry either, once we finally did get going. So we were fully an hour late in arriving at our destination.

Anyway, despite the late running we still managed to get in a good walk from Kilcoole station, heading west towards Kilquade. Along the way, we climbed the Rock of Kilcoole, took in the Mass Path, visited St Patrick’s church where Simon Harris (Taoiseach until the Dáil was recently dissolved in advance of the General Election) got married, and the Arboretum.

We stopped at the Arboretum to enjoy our packed lunches with coffee from the on-site café. While there, I tried to work out exactly what the Arboretum actually was. It’s described as the National Garden Exhibition Centre on Google but as far as I can tell, it’s just a garden centre (and a very expensive one at that).

We didn’t stop long for lunch, as we had lost an hour of walking time by through the delays on the way out. So we retraced our steps back to Kilcoole station and made sure we didn’t linger on the way. But we needn’t have rushed, as our return train to Connolly was twenty minutes late anyway. So we had a longish wait on the platform, anxiously eyeing the dark clouds to the north which were rapidly heading our way. Fortunately, the train turned up just in the nick of time so we were onboard just before it started raining. Particularly fortunate, as there are no shelters on Kilcoole station.

The rest of the onward journey back to Malahide was straightforward though slow, as our DART from Connolly was also delayed. Anyway, I eventually made it back to the flat and about to start reheating a frozen pop-pop meal I bought a couple of weeks ago so that Val and I can have something hot to eat once she gets back from Wonderlights. Cold and bedraggled, I fear.

So a good day all round, I’d say, though by the end of it we were all perhaps a little too familiar with the vagaries of Iarnród Éireann’s idiosyncratic timetabling system for comfort.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Kilcoole station – at last! Still, better late than never	Showing the way to our next destination (see banner image at the top of the blog for a view of the summit)

The mass path to Kilquade – nice, but you have to watch your feet as it’s popular with dog-walkers who don’t seem to bother clearing up afterwards	The Arboretum – looking for all the world like a garden centre

Inside t Patrick’s Church at Kilquade. It’s a nice, relatively simple church which has been clearly kept in very good order	We took a short walk over the tracks onto the beach at Kilcoole station, while we were waiting for the train north

Also at Kilcoole station – an attractive sculpture telling as about the Little Terns which nest on the beach between April and September. The models are made out of recycled Iarnród Éireann signage