Ireland day 1483. Monday 20 October 2025- Guests Depart

Today’s summary	The last day with our friends in Malahide. Took our time over breakfast then made packed lunches and went out. Walked round the demesne and over the hill to the beach for coffees and lunch. On return to the flat, our guests did their packing and drove off to the port to catch an evening ferry to Holyhead. Val and I spent the evening watching TV and having beans on toast for dinner
Today’s weather	More heavy overnight rain then frequent downpours during the day. Occasional sun. Light northerly wind. Appx 13c

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): Demesne and Coast BP

Commentary

We have been with our friends Bev and Pete for the last ten days – first in Malahide for a day, then in Dingle for a week, and finally for two more days here in Malahide again. It’s been great having them around but all good things, as they always do, must come to an end. So today was the last day of their Irish visit and we wanted to make the most of the time before their evening ferry.

This meant we could allow ourselves a fairly slow start to the day, with plenty of time to make breakfast and put together some sandwiches for our packed lunches. It also allowed a bit of time for the rain to ease up a little and for the day to offer the promise of brighter weather. We left the flat just before noon and set out on an unimaginative but always enjoyable walk around the Demesne, then up over Paddy’s Hill and down to the beach at Portmarnock via the Spar shop to pick up coffees.

Because everywhere was so wet, and because the threat of rain never seemed far off, we sought out the newly-painted bathing shelter to enjoy our lunches and shop-bought coffees, whilst watching the tide slowly recede from the Velvet Strand. Very relaxing and enjoyable. When we’d finished our sandwiches, we girded our loins and set off back along the coast path in the direction of Malahide.

By moving relatively quickly after lunch, we had hoped to make it back to the sanctuary of the flat before the threatening black clouds looming overhead turned into something more substantial. But alas, we didn’t make it. A couple of km from the end, it started to rain and it just got heavier and heavier as we walked as briskly as we could back to Malahide.

Eventually we were back inside again, so wet clothes were changed and the central heating was blasted up to maximum, in an effort to get everything dry again before Bev and Pete had to depart.

I think we more or less managed to get the worst of the wet evaporated before they finally left at about 5pm. Their sailing wasn’t until quite late in the evening, so they would be back home in the UK in the early hours. But it did mean we could all have a more or less full day together. All together it’s been an excellent visit. We were all very pleased with how it went.

Once they were safely on their way, Val and I went on a short walk round the Marina, then relaxed with a couple of beers then beans on toast for dinner. Finally, now we are settling back to enjoy some of the Tour de France on Netflix before anticipating an early night. Iarnród Éireann are yet again doing engineering works from 1am to 5am tonight (and it goes on all week) so we would like to try and get a at least a couple of hours sleep before it all kicks off. Hey-ho; lesson learned. Never live near a station!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Rain, rain rain! And the saturated ground can no longer keep soaking it up	Heading into the Autumn woodlands

Seamount House in Jameson Orchard – still on the market for €6 million. It’s got ten bedrooms and six bathrooms. Sounds like an awful lot of cleaning to me. And you have a huge housing estate right in your back garden.	Malahide’s “secret” lake, up on the flanks of Paddy’s Hill, close to the Seamount house

This curious and immobile ship was off the coast of Portmarnock – we couldn’t work out what it was or what it was doing	*Receding tide revealing the Lithostrotion* along the coast between Portmarnock and Malahide**

Newly repainted bathing shelter at Portmarnock beach. An ideal spot to shelter from the rain while we had lunch (and of course coffees from the Spar shop on the promenade)