Ireland day 1270. Friday 21 March 2025- Neap Tide

Today’s summary	Val was working at the museum so after a video call to a friend in the UK, I walked round the Broadmeadow estuary to Newbridge. Following a sandwich lunch and coffee from the café, caught the train back from Donabate. Once in Malahide, Val returned from work and I updated by laptop’s hard drive. More “Mad Men” in the evening.
Today’s weather	Some sun in the morning but overcast with a light shower in the afternoon. Moderate 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): Neap tide Broadmeadow loop

Commentary

Val was putting another shift at the museum today. So as soon as she had set off at 9:30, I got myself another cup of tea and videocalled a friend in Lancaster for a chat and a catch up. After a good hour putting the world to rights on Skype (probably the last time I’ll use it, by the way, as it’s being closed down in May and replaced by the dreadful Teams) I pulled my trainers on and set off to get some exercise.

As the moon is in the last quarter at the moment, that means we are getting neap tides for the next few days. So, because that in turn means the Broadmeadow lagoon can drain properly, I decided I’d take advantage of the low water and walk round to Newbridge.

I enjoy this walk, and it makes a good alternative to my local favourite “hill and sea” circuit to Portmarnock. It’s a bit longer, but there’s no climbing exercise and it does depend on the tide being right if you don’t want to have to walk down the Hearse Road.

It was a good choice. Although the sun had stopped shining by the time I set off, it wasn’t too cold and the easterly wind wasn’t too perishing. There were a few windsurfers pottering around in the lagoon, with a large flock of Brent geese keeping a watchful eye from a safe distance halfway over to the far shore. Although as I got to the western end of the lagoon, the air did get a bit smelly – I couldn’t tell if it was the drying out mudflats, or the swords sewage works having a particularly bad day.

I got round the lagoon with dry feet, thanks to the neap tide, then once at Newbridge, I paused in the Demesne and had my packed lunch. But at that point, it started to rain so I packed up and beat a hasty retreat to the café for a quick cup of coffee and a piece of chocolate biscuit cake to round things off.

Once I’d finished dining I finished off the walk at Donabate station, where I only had six minutes to wait for a train south.

Back at Malahide, Val returned soon after me and she set about making a curry while I installed a new SDXC card on my laptop. As I had over 100,000 photos to copy from the old to the new card, it took over seven hours to complete.

The rest of our evening was spent enjoying a light salad for dinner, a video call with family in Canada and then a couple more episodes of “Mad Men”. So, overall, a pretty good day, I’d say.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Pottering about in the lagoon	Getting to the western end of the lagoon with the potentially smelly mudflats

The also potentially smelly Swords sewage works	Refreshments!

Newbridge Demesne	Six minute wait here for a southbound train

I love this gate! The peculiar pivot angle means it automatically closes itself – and also opens and closes both inwards and outwards