August 31, 2023

It is day 8, our last day, of the Wicklow Way. We arrived in Dublin after 8 days of walking along the Wicklow Way. We left out a few miles here and there so our total was just under 70 miles instead of the total 83 miles. For the numbers people, we hiked for 40 hours, my Fit Bit showed the total steps for the walk to be 204,758 steps; Norman figures the amount of elevation we gained over the hike was 13,150 feet (this is all the uphill, not the net); Fit Bit calls it 1,155 floors of stairs.

Today started out with a very high chance of rain all day, but when we got to our starting point, the rain had stopped. The clouds were low on the hillsides and the wind was about 20-25 miles per hour. We walked across the moors of the Dublin Mountains, a beautiful up and down through heather covered ground.  At the top, we caught our first view of Dublin since leaving there over a week ago.

We have enjoyed our time in Ireland. We’ve met many nice people. The walk has been challenging but fun. We fly to Scotland tomorrow to visit longtime friends for 2 days before we begin the England canal boat part of our trip.

 

August 30, 2023

As we complete day 7 of the Wicklow Way, we have but one more day of hiking. Today’s hike reached the high point of the route. After some walking in a forest to begin,we had over mile of boardwalk across the boggy terrain of the moors. The cold wind made for a very chilly hike with windbreakers on all day. The vistas were spectacular including looking out across the Irish Sea. We saw lots of sheep, but, as usual, they avoided us. I had another 25,000+ step day! We met a couple who are doing the walk in 5 days as opposed to our8 days. Ah, youth!

 

August 29, 2023

Day 6 of the Wicklow way was cloudy but without rain. We began the day hiking through a forest; 

we continued across a beautiful hillside of heather before completing the day along a small country road. 

We crossed the Avonmore River on a bridge built in 1838 with a monument to the “Old Bridge”. 

Our 24,000+ step day ended in Roundwood where we taxied back to our Riverside B&B in Laragh.

Thanks to Becky Stevens for telling me about the Ininji liner toe socks. My feet are happy. And we all know, happy feet, happy hiker.  

 

Ireland

 

 There’s beauty in the rolling hills,

All shades of verdant green

Except where hay is freshly mown,

The only brown we’ve seen.

 

We sit and watch the rain fall

As you sing your sweet, sad song;

We’ve got several miles to walk;

We’d better get along.

 

The history of your fine land

Is filled with grief and stain,

The story of a suffering folk,

A memory of pain.

 

One year, the crops are failures,

And potatoes are black rot.

It’s hard to feed your children

If that is all you’ve got.

 

You take a ship across the sea;

So hard to say good-bye.

But, if you stay, you know that

You will watch the children die.

 

And, if that were not enough

To fill a life with woe,

There’s the struggle with the British,

And how to make them go.

 

Catholics versus Protestants,

It seems to me quite odd

How humankind can act that way

When worshipping one God

 

So of an early morning,

When mist gathers into rain,

We will don our waterproofs,

And thank the Lord again

 

That we have come to Ireland,

To remember what is good,

And leave the painful buried,

After learning what we should.

 

August 26 & 27, 2023

Because we were without Wi-Fi for the last couple of days, I’ll combine posts for days 4 and 5 of our Wicklow Way hike.

Day 4 was chilly (sorry Houston friends) and rainy. We wore our rain gear all day as the rain came and went and alternated with mist. Still, the countryside is lovely. The morning began with a kilometer of steep uphill. We remarked that when we did a walk in Tuscany in Italy, we walked through beautiful rolling valleys each day only to end with a steep hike to a town on a hill. Here, we start up at the beginning of the day, spend the whole days getting high into the hills, and, at the very end of the hike, drop way down into a valley. (25,000+ steps)

Day 5 started out in the mist/rain with a hike up through another old forest. I hope you’ll enjoy the picture of the view at the top of the pass taken from the boardwalk which lets hikers avoid the marshy ground. 

Following this section, we headed down into a National Forest that runs along 2 lakes. We saw a lovely waterfall here to go with the long white ribbon of a fall earlier. 

We have arrived at a small town where we’ll spend a rest day tomorrow. (29,000+ steps)

 

August 25, 2023

Day 3 of the Wicklow Way is also Norman’s birthday! Happy Birthday!

The chilly day began with ominous clouds with mist turning to rain. We were determined not to end up soaked as we were on the first day, so we stopped to don our rain gear. Just as one would hope, that had the desired effect. The clouds gave way to blue sky and sunshine.

Much of our hike was through old forest. The planted forest is now at maturity. Some trees are being harvested to thin the forests. Meanwhile, new forests are being planted adjacent to the old plots. The only deer we have seen have been in these forests. The mosses on the ground are lush and dense. Often, we didn’t see streams flowing through the forest, but, if we stopped, we heard the water running. The streams are sometimes five or six feet below the forest floor. It’s a magical and surreal world.

We enjoyed the shorter hiking day. I only recorded 20,000 steps.

 

August 24, 2023

Day 2 of our Wicklow Way walk began at the Dying Cow pub. The sun blessed us all day, a welcome relief from our wet day yesterday. We planned for a shorter day than yesterday and were sort of successful with that. I still had 24,000+ steps so I will have ice cream for dessert again!

The Dying Cow was named in to remember the night that a constable came to cite the men gathered there for drinking after hours. The proprietress explained that the men had come to help with a dying cow, not for drinking. Don’t know whether the gents avoided fines, but the pub got its name.

The countryside is beautiful. We’ve seen lots of sheep, plus some cows, some goats, some horses, and some miniature donkeys; they all look healthy and happy.

The hedgerows lining the roads are often too tall to see over. There is a lot of up and down, seems like more up. We took the set of steps to go down to a road crossing; that means going back up.

We’re hoping for more sunshine tomorrow!

 

August 23, 2023

We began the Wicklow walk today. After last night’s beautiful sunset, we hoped for a nice day. Not long after the picture at the starting point, the mist turned into rain. All day long, we were in low clouds with precipitation off and on. We hiked without raingear, just getting a little damp. At the end though, we got soaked. For those of you who count, it was 28,000+ steps.

We are at our destination for the evening. We’ve lolled in hot showers and hung the wet clothes up to dry. We’re just back from dinner; a beef curry for me, and beer battered haddock for Norman. We shared a rather huge vanilla ice cream for dessert. The sky cleared while we were having dinner.

We’ll have a shorter day tomorrow with better weather, we hope.