Killiney Loops

Ready to walk after a feed of pancakes and coffee on a hazy but dry day without too much pain in my foot. The iPhone being set up, the walking gear on, I set off about nine into a chilly easterly breeze. Round to Roches Hill where the crushed booze cans and general detritus make you sad and anrgy that no one cares to clean up after those who can only afford to watch the golfers in Killiney. Overcast, there's no bird song today but the bright yellow gorse somehow compensates. Cross the highest point and on down towards the sea, using mostly walled rights-of-way. An early encounter with a Black Suvdriver reminded me to watch out for the local wildlife. Overgrown pathways attest to an ongoing conflict in the area; unrestricted access might attract walkers and others into places they are not really wanted.

Reaching the beach, having passed the gum treed garden of the Canadian ambassador, I saw a Greater Breasted Ball Thrower. She was entertaining a dog where it is alleged that sandwiches were once offered to a tramp seen on successive days sitting below Bono's home - except it is said it was Bono.

Killiney beach is where Robert Mallett demonstrated in 1862 that seismic energy propagated in the near surface thereby explaining the destructive forces of earthquakes. This knowledge was used to triangulate artillery locations in the Great War and is now a fundamental tool in exploration and exploitation of sub-surface natural resources.

I watched a Blousy Backcombed Bun bird walk across the small promontory that separates Killiney and White Rock beaches. I was rock-hopping my way across the storm driven boulders, varifocal glasses inspired bone breaking noises whispering in my sub-conscious. The outcrop is the contact or metamorhic aureole between the granite pluton and the country rock into which it was injected, a fact that explains a few adits that memorialise unfulfilled Victorian ambitions. I could still see aligned, black rectilinear tourmaline crystals on some exposed surfaces of the schists.

I went up the steep steps to cross the railway line and then across to the Cat's Ladder. As I puffed my way up to Shaw's cottage, I was remembering how I used to run up with Oscar when he was a puppy, both of us at our ease; that was twelve years ago and while I'm just unfit, his short Labrador life span recently expired. His memory and loyalty will always be treasured in our pack.

As I rounded a corner, continuing the ascent towards Dalkey Quarry, I startled a Latte'd Dog Walker, resplendent in her blue livery. I reached the Castle, thinking back to the days when car laden, lumbering Aer Lingus Carvairs crossed low enough that someone lit a flare of weed-killer and sugar to surprise the pilots.

Crossing to the grassy knoll on which the Obelisk represents Killiney, several Pert Breasted Student Birds attracted my attention. The term grassy knoll only came to me because we saw Ricky Gervais on stage last night (a crass, puerile, obscene, offensive and bigoted show that made me ashamed that I laughed). Why was Kennedy not shot from a hillock?

I dropped back down to the Burmah Road car park where there were quite a few Larger Fat BastBirds waddling across the grass and even a few familied groups of Greater Smug Hybrid Drivers gathering among the pines. I thought I spotted a brace of Common Recyclers skulking around the newly moved bottle banks but I might have been wrong.

I headed into the quarry, passing just a few meters from the home where an unvisited aunt wastes away in a demented state that is probably more uncomfortable for us than her. I definitely saw several common species of the Hard Hatted Rock Climbers, including the Red and the Black.

I walked down The Metals, named for the tracks on which gravity propelled trains hauled granite for use on Brunel's Kingstown Harbour piers. I passed only tens of meters from the house where I grew up and not much more from the house in which a second cousin was shot dead on his doorstep, something we all know about as kids but never understood where. And then on to the Atmospheric Road, commemerating another Brunel rail propulsion idea, one that failed.

Down again at sea level in Bulloch Harbour, there was gaggle of Lesser Yellow Bladed Kayakers putting to sea with a tripidation that that belied the calmness of the full tide. There were no seals visible but that was probably because there were some Black Neoprened Divers training at the harbour mouth.

I went back up to Dalkey village, where I bought a drink and a snack. A coincidence or what, buying a Tracker bar upset the GPS tacker on my iPhone, something I'd learn when I got home. On walking up along Sorrento Road, I wished I had my binoculars to confirm if I was seeing a Dappled Staggering Artist or perhaps the rarer Dappled Starving Artist, said to be resident but usually hidden from view.

My final encounter with local wildlife was at the source of Latte, the cafe just inside the Victoria Gate. There were lots of Dog Walkers there, flocks of the blue legged Latte'd, a few black footed Cheery Backpacked and finally, an irridiscent Greater Papoosed cock with an innocuous female.

A good 11.5 km up and down to sea level a few times burning at least 700 calories - not a lot but good training.


Thank you Rachel, Ryan, Megan and Luke.