Ireland day 1298. Friday 18 April 2025- Dublin Port Greenway 2

Today’s summary	Took the DART with Val to Clontarf Rod and walked out and back along the new Dublin Port greenway. Rained continuously the whole way but we gained shelter on the return at the Circle K petrol station café. DART back at the end and we really enjoyed the walk despite the rain. Finished off the Thai curries for dinner, listened to a couple of podcasts and watched some more “Mad Men” in the evening.
Today’s weather	Heavily overcast and rain all day. Moderate to strong easterly wind. Appx 9c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The red 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): Dublin Port Greenway again

Commentary

“Greenways” are slowly becoming popular in Ireland. These are, generally, well engineered tracks, often tarmacked, reserved for the exclusive use of walkers and cyclists. To a certain extent they fulfil the same purpose as public footpaths and rights of way in the UK, though they are far less extensive and far less rustic.

A new Greenway leading to Dublin Port opened last September and very soon after it was commissioned, I walked it. It was a pouring wet cold day, and Val wasn’t with me. I’d enjoyed it, even though it’s only very short and it’s just an out-and-back route (around 4km each way). I had always wanted to go back and to walk it again, and to bring Val along too. Ideally it would have been nice to have some good weather, too, when I did it again.

Anyway, today I realised my ambition – in at least two respects. I walked the greenway again, and Val came too, but the weather wasn’t nice. In fact it was a carbon copy re-run of last September – pouring with rain, cold and windy.

So after breakfast – Val fired us up with some porridge first, and I made coffees – we set off and caught a DART to Clontarf Road station. You can walk straight from the train into the path and you’re soon on the greenway-proper.

The walk was very similar in almost all respects to last time. The main difference was the vegetation – in September it was looking worn out and end-of-season-y whereas today it was brilliant green and bursting with life. As and when the weather improves after this wet spell, I’m sure Ireland will look absolutely lovely.

We walked out to the end of the greenway near the Stena Line and Irish Ferries terminals then turned on our heels and headed straight back. I was pleased to see on the sign at the end: “Phase #2 opening 2027” – it will be great when it goes a bit further and maybe even ends up going right round the port peninsula. We broke our journey midway to visit the nearby Circle K petrol station for refreshments in the café. I had a chicken ciabatta roll which was both surprisingly good and surprisingly cheap (at €7.50 for a very substantial roll and a large cup of tea).

We waited in the café for a while to see if it would clear up outside, but it didn’t and if anything it just got worse. So we felt the fear and did it anyway and dived back out into the deluge and hiked back to Clontarf Road as fast as we could.

We had a bit of a wait for a DART but were back in the flat by about 4pm and definitely in need of a hot cup of tea and some dry clothes. Once we were sorted, we listened to a couple of podcasts then Val made some cakes and we reheated yesterday’s leftover Thai curry which we finished off for dinner. Val somehow also managed to find time to do some baking.

You can probably guess how the rest of the evening went – but if you can’t, “Mad Men”, curry and beer were key ingredients. Overall, despite the rain, it was a good day out which we enjoyed considerably more than you might have expected by just looking out of the window at the grey wetness outside this morning.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Still reasonably dry as we are about to set off	Val learning about the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, which took place directly opposite here, on the far side of the Tolka Estuary

Cornflowers (like this), poppies and echiums have been planted in the verges alongside the and with the recent sun and today’s rain, they were looking striking today	In the café at the Circle K petrol station, pretending we are on the harbour-font in Monaco. It’s very similar, in some ways



Val was happy!