Menai

I drove up from London to Anglesea en route to the ferry to Dublin. I stopped at Menai Bridge having seen a walk in the AA book of UK walks (#99). Experience on this ferry journey gave me ETA probabilities ranging between 830 (p90) and 1100 (p10) and it was more like 945 when I got to Menai. Lengthy M6 road works and heavy M56 traffic meant I had about an hour to spare before ferry boarding closed at 1120. So it was going to have to be a short walk on a mild, bright morning, the day after storm Doris lashed these parts.

The very first thing I saw was a red squirrel - quite a coincidence having heard a radio story this morning about their likely extinction in the UK within 40 years due to a combination of imported pestilence and grey immigration. Then a skein of migrating geese passed overhead at Church Island and shortly afterwards, I found myself under the arches of Telford's Menai Suspension Bridge looking at Shellduck feeding on the ebbing tide.

I walked up to fields full of apparently pregnant sheep after passing rhododendron blooms scattered by the storm. I came across a clump of wind beheaded daffodils and watched two magpies gathering twigs. It's been that mild that nature has declared Spring.

Another coincidence as I crossed the border into Wales, I heard Burton reading Hopkins, an excellent Welsh connection on the Radio 3 breakfast show.

Just 4 km because I lingered at the views, leaving some 476 km to go. 

Gus

Gus has been one of my walking companions for years. I can't fault his enthusiasm but he's messy; his bushy tail tends to ensnare sticks that other dogs might carry in their mouths. And that's on top of the mud and sand and salt water he brings home. And yet, if I walked six kilometres, Gus must have covered ten.

There were enough Sunday morning walkers out in unusually mild conditions that I could eavesdrop on passing snippets of conversation:

"Stone studies? No, no, film studies. Film studies are an Arts degree ..."

"... like mental health funding and assessments ..."

"... and you send them an email by pressing this."

Some of the local rubbish bins attempt inspiration, one stencilled "A day without laughter is a day wasted". 

On White Rock beach, we listened to a clarinet being played in the changing area. We've heard it here before. Gus is not as limber as once he was so we watched people who threw, batted and slingshotted tennis balls for their dogs.

Another 6 km leaves just 480 km to cover in 17 weeks.

Countdown

There is enough for all. The Earth is a generous mother. She will provide, in plentiful abundance, food for all her children, if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace.
William Bourke Cockran as quoted by Winston Churchill in Iron Curtain speech, Fulton, Missouri 1946

It's time for another three peaks walk. This time the Yorkshire Three Peaks on June 27. Unfit and overweight, I have decided to walk 500 km in practice and today is the start of the countdown.

I read the Cockran/Churchill quote in the Irish Times at breakfast. Which gave me a theme for the first walk. I thought I'd start by taking advantage of an increasingly rare privilege and walk past the homes of my male antecedents. I live near where three generations have lived over the last 130 years. The link, in my head at least, is that we should be striving to improve the world for those who follow. Most of my antecedents did that. And knowing where you came from is a privilege that springs from the dedications of those others. This seems implicit in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Walking to raise money for Care International is another method. Helping me raise money does it too. And if we help Care, we help raise people towards self-actualisation. Globally. There is indeed enough for all.


14.5 km today. Just 485.5 km to go.

Ridgeway

I've walked all but the western end of The Ridgeway so I decided to complete it this weekend. I set out from The White Horse to walk to Avebury, 35 km or about seven hours. Other bloggers advised that opportunities for refreshment are limited on this section so I carried a small tin of tonic, a few litres of other liquids and the contents of a large fruit bowl. It was 3 degrees C at the start, rain in the forecast and I was multilayer insulated.

Amidst the flints of Wilts and the welts of the shire, showers darkened the horizon and pipits and larks sang their territorial displays before the hail arrived. A buzzard tree hopped and later a hobby flashed past. Pheasants everywhere fattening themselves for local tables. Manicured horse gallops and rumours of heated horse swimming pools suggest the wealth of the area. Lonely trees abound, my photographers minimalist eye drawn to them and the myriad patterns on the chalky fields churned by rabbits and moles.

I met a few people, joked with some on horseback about the 'soft going', ignored a few packs of antisocial mountain bikers. One woman had an Akita with saddlebags carrying its own bowl, water and snacks; she said the dog drew the line at towing her up the hills.

I had ice cream and tea from a van on Barbary Castle car park. I took a detour to see the stone aged Liddington Castle ramparts. Passed by many Bassetts and I wandered around the neolithic henges in Avebury. A memorable history lesson in a live pageant.

Q collected me, brought me home to a shower and a big dinner of Hungarian Chicken, cherry cake closed by cheese and crackers.

A great end to a mucky 25 mile walk. Patchy phone coverage prevented blogging as I walked, locally blamed on the ley lines around Avebury.

Prime

I’d like to think I could live to see my 25th prime birthday. For now, as I prepare for my 18th prime year, I can reflect on how much has changed since my 17th. Key among those changes are that I’ve been successfully treated for prostate cancer and I’ve met two more grandchildren. So I’ve lots to be thankful for.

In a fit of fitness insanity, I set out from Killiney to the start of The Dublin Mountains Way (DMW) at 8 am. I walked down to Killiney Beach and south along the beach to get to Shankill. That 5km took an hour. It was cold and damp but bright and not actually raining. I bought some bread and bottled coffee in Spar since the coffee shop at the start hadn’t opened yet. Added to two litres of water in my camelbak and the apples, bananas, figs and yoghurt drinks, I thought I had enough to sustain me for the next eight hours but it took over ten.

I headed west past Brady’s pub into Rathmichael Wood and on eventually to Carrickgollan and the Lead Mines. The views of the city were great but the hints of rain and sleet became my main interest. The DMW signs were easy to follow as I ascended through Barnaslingan Wood up to The Scalp, the border between Dublin and Wicklow counties, 12 km walked.

The worst part of the entire walk is the section from The Scalp to Ticknock. Six kilometres along busy roads including the hazards on that long climb to Johnny Foxes pub on narrow roads with blind bends and hurtling cars. I found myself pressed into roadside bushes twice. Over reaction? Maybe, though safety trumps injury from driver inattention or protruding wing mirrors.

I entered Ticknock Forest, 18 km since I left home, to see quite a few deer watching me. It’s Monday and I’m almost the only person on the walk so the deer have the place to themselves. I needed some distraction at the point of no return at the top of Three Rock Mountain. Great views but the chill was getting to me. I plugged in my earbuds and listened to the William Boyd novel Sweet Caress read to me by Jilly Bond. Her style is annoying and her range of accents not quite as broad or consistent as the novel deserves. I wonder if Lee Miller was at least a part of the inspiration for the story.

Low noon at Fairy Castle 

I passed the Fairy Castle cairn where two dogless people were taking selfies and panorama photos. This was the highest point of the walk, 537 m amsl. The top of nearby Kippure was still covered in snow, the ground around me patchy with snow and frozen water.


And I went on to the boggy top of Tibradden where another couple were exercising a dog with hurling stick and ball. Odd how easily we can ignore the Neolithic summer solstice aligned ‘grave’ that’s been here for five thousand years.

My 28th kilometre found me entering Cruagh Forest, walking up Cruagh Mountain and down to Glendoo Brook where my phone rang and I needed to stand still to maintain coverage for a 15 minute business discussion. It had started to drizzle as I resumed and reached Killakee and crossed the completely logged Killakee Wood. I hate the sense of post-nuclear desolation such clearances leave. Again, my phone summoned me and I stood on a stump for ten minutes with a line of sight to the distant cellular tower on Kippure. I skipped the optional Hellfire Club loop because there were only two more hours of light and I was tiring.

And then the walk got boring again, a pointless six kilometre trudge along tarmac roads from Piperstown down to Cunard and Castlekelly. I saw several ravens calling and rolling as they flew in the light breeze. I read at St Anne’s graveyard that the O’Tooles ‘wasted’ the area in 1306.  I had been  angered and ashamed by the amount of rubbish fly-tipped into the drainage ditches beside the road though I didn't blame those O'Tooles. I wasn’t in any mood to visit the church after nine hours walking.

I walked with a cock pheasant for 100 m along the Dodder River entering Glenasmole Reservoir. I carried alongside the river to Kiltipper Park and some abandoned, presumably stolen bicycles. By now, my patience was as exhausted as my legs. I had run out of food and water and hadn’t passed a shop or pub since Johnny Foxes, five hours long past.

I reached the suburban sprawls of Oldbawn and Kilinarden as the sun set spectacularly over a closed cafe. So I pushed on to Sean Walsh Park and the Square in Tallaght. That last six kilometres was flat, very boring and tedious and I amused myself by counting registration plates beginning 161, those new since January 1st. The economy must be booming again because there were a lot.

I crossed the Tallaght bridge and went into Burger King for a large fries and a pint of milk before getting a taxi home, arriving an hour late for the dinner prepared for me. I wasn’t too sore after 48 kilometres, ten and a half hours, though my lumbar spine was reminding me where I broke it in my seventh prime year. As said earlier, I have many reasons to be thankful.

In short, I can't recommend this walk in it’s entirety. Several sections are great with rewarding views (Lead Mines, Three Rock, Tibradden) but they are stitched together by three tedious six kilometre stretches, one of which puts walkers into hazardous contention with fast travelling and frankly, distracted drivers. I don’t imagine the Dublin Mountains Way would be any more rewarding walked in the opposite direction.

Loop

The Rugby World Cup is on and I'm in London without match tickets. So I took the tube from Wembley Park to Stratford in order to walk between two venues in which Ireland would be playing.

It took just over 7 hours, a bit longer than I expected. I followed the London Capital Loop signage (in reverse direction) but it's not perfect and I got diverted a few times. I don't recommend this particular walk for fun - I'm sure it's more interesting by bike. I think the portions through Abney Park cemetery and along the disused train line around Crouch End were the most interesting to me. The lack of signage around East Finchley and Hampstead was annoying. And the final leg through suburban sprawl to Wembley Park was depressing.

I posted photos to WhatsApp as I walked, another opportunity to experiment with new Moment lenses on an Apple iPhone 6.

Later, I used Adobe Slate to put this flow together which explains the delay between the walk on 26th of September and my first post in this new blog.

My feet are now at least five years older than the photo.