Ireland day 1358. Tuesday 17 June 2025- Locus Lite

Today’s summary	First of all – the Japanese evening last night was a great success. So we slept in a bit this morning then went on a short walk together. Had a snacky lunch on return then I took Val to the airport for a quick trip to the UK (back Saturday). In the afternoon I walked over the hill to Portmarnock to test out the new Locus Lite navigation app with offline maps. In the evening, finished off the Japanese leftovers for dinner and watched a travel video on Oman
Today’s weather	Heavily overcast in the morning with a shower around lunchtime. Cleared up in the afternoon leaving a dry sunny evening. Light westerly wind. Appx 20c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of my route)		Close-up location (The blue 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): Locus Lite offline maps tests

Commentary

As dinner parties go, I’d say that last night’s Japanese event was pretty successful. Val prepared an absolutely superb authentic meal from the various ingredients we’d picked up at Asia Market last Thursday, and I shared a slideshow of some of our favourite Japan pictures, which seemed to be well received. All in all a real success and very much enjoyed by all. So this morning, we allowed ourselves a bit of a lie-in before getting up and tackling the hangover of tidying up from yesterday. Eventually, all was finished and Val and I went on a short walk round Hanlon’s Lane to mark a job well done.

On our return, after a light lunch mainly of Japanese snacks, I drove Val round to the airport to catch a flight to London. She’s in the UK until Saturday, catching up with family and friends. I, meanwhile, used the afternoon to download and test my newest navigation app. I have been using “Locus Maps” on my Android Pixel phone for several months now, and really enjoy it. There is a “Lite” version for Apple but it has far less functionality and – up until now – didn’t allow you to download maps for offline use.

Anyway, I am part of the beta test program for Locus Lite and today was asked to try out a beta of the new version, which now has offline maps. So once Val was away, I charged up my phone and set off on a walk up and over Paddy’s Hill to do some testing en route to Portmarnock.

My first impressions were quite favourable. It’s still nowhere near as good as the Android version, but the downloaded, offline, maps worked perfectly, which is good as this was the biggest area of weakness in Locus Lite compared to the Android app. I also uncovered some other glitches related to Apple Health and photo synchronisation, which I relayed back to the developers via the Testflight app.

I took my time on the way, in order to give the app a good test, and of course stopped off at the shop in Portmarnock to get a coffee (and an ice-lolly!) along the way. Once back at the flat, I had a video call with Val who successfully made it to London relatively painlessly, then pulled together a nutritious dinner of tasty Japanese morsels left over from last night.

The rest of the evening was spent relaxing with the remains of a part-empty bottle of red wine, while watching a fascinating travel vlog on the hinterland of Oman. Yet another spot we will have to add to our “must visit” list!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Locus Lite for iOS on my iPhone 12 mini – now looking somewhat battered! The app has lots of promise, especially now that a limited range of offline maps is available – but still needs some work to bring it up to the same standard as the Android equivalent	Flags are out for the music events up at the demesne. Looking very cheerful

The view from Paupers’ Hill – the stage is just visible at centre right. The best spot for freebie viewing. Tonight it’s “Charlie XCX” and to my embarrassment I have never heard of him (or them). I am showing my age I am afraid.	Low Rock swimming spot, with Lambay beyond. Lots of hardy bathers splashing about this afternoon



On the top of Paddy’s Hill. A study in pink 🙂