Ireland day 1187. Saturday 28 December 2024- Xmas Mayo 8

Ireland day 1187. Saturday 28 December 2024- Xmas Mayo 8
Today’s summary James and Katie left the cottage around 7:45am to drive to Knock for a flight back to London. The remaining three of us packed up the rest of our things and loaded the car then set off to drive east around 9:30. We dropped Rob at Dublin airport for his flight to the UK then returned to Malahide to unpack. Later, Val went on a run and I went on a relaxing walk up Seamount. Watched some TV in the evening.
Today’s weather Murky wet and windy in Louisburgh, decent and bright with some sun in Malahide. Moderate south westerly wind. Appx 9c
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):
Wind Down walk over Malahides Secret Hill
Commentary

Well all good things have to come to an end I suppose, and today marked the final chapter of our family trip to County Mayo. It’s been a great time with everyone, but sadly the time has come for everyone to move on and ease back into the real world.

So, things started early, when James and Katie were up and away from the cottage by 7:45 am. They had to catch a morning flight from Knock, about an hour’s drive away, back to London.

The remaining three of us weren’t far behind. We had a quick breakfast then loaded up the left over food and all our belongings into the Trusty Yaris. There seemed to be even more stuff than when we drove out – we had somewhat over-catered! Anyway, we won’t need to go shopping for several weeks now, while we eat up all the leftovers.

We left An Teach Ban (highly recommended self catering cottage by the way- one of the best) at about 9:30am and pottered off east via the Tuan / M6 route. We arrived at Dublin airport around 1:30pm, in plenty of time for Rob to catch his 4pm flight. Once we had said our goodbyes, Val and I completed our journey to Malahide and started the task of transferring the contents of the Yaris into the flat.

Eventually we got ourselves sorted out, had a cup of tea, and contemplated the afternoon. As we had left Mayo so early, we had plenty of time ahead of us, and even a couple of hours of daylight. So we decided to make the most of it – Val headed off on a 7k run round the demesne, while I went on a shorter 5k walk over Seamount and the “secret” hill.

By the time we had both got back from our respective excursions, it was getting dark. So we drew the blinds, cranked up the central heating, and considered the mountain of eating-up in front of us. Tonight’s dinner would be a good place to start, I guess, perhaps washed down with a good dose of Netflix and maybe a glass of the decent red wine that we brought back from Mayo.

The real world sounds pretty good to me, so far!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)

The Tavern inn – about 5 minute’s drive from the cottage, and where we went for dinner last night.   Great food, but not so sure about the colour scheme! Fragrant Viburnum in full bloom at the top of Church Road
View towards the airport from the new housing development at the top of Seamount Sunset turning the sky orange over the Sugarloaf, from the top of Malahide’s “Secret Hill”
All this – plus three people – came back in the Yaris this morning.   Trusty is really earning his keep at the moment!
Interactive map

(Elevations corrected at  GPS Visualizer: Assign DEM elevation data to coordinates )

Total distance: 4396 m
Max elevation: 55 m
Min elevation: 1 m
Total climbing: 81 m
Total descent: -80 m
Total time: 00:54:20
Download file: Wind-down-walk-compressed-corrected.gpx

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