Sugar Loaf

A walk from Killiney to the top of the Sugar Loaf through Bray and Kilmacanogue. One I'd done two years ago for the Three Peaks Challenge. And I knew I had to do it again because the other two walks this weekend had the Sugar Loaf tempting me from the horizon. The first 15 km were in my wet gear, the first time I'd worn it this year. So sweaty but good to have the opportunity to wear it just in case it rains on the day (only thirteen days from now).

I changed out of the majority of my clothes, laying them on the bracken to dry once the sun came out. This was on the slopes of the mountain, in the area where the Irish round of the Trials Bike world championship was held years ago. I had looked at the map and even having walked it before, I still underestimated the distance and the effort. I called to be rescued from the car park just below the peak rather than miss a special Sunday lunch. I later ended up in the bath soaking my knees, jarred and twisted by climbing up over the boulders on the east side of the Loaf, forced there by the 50 km/hr sand blasting winds. It was a tough walk of 19 km that took my total in the last six days to exactly 100 km.

THANK YOU ZITA & RYAN!!!

Bray

Fog weighed down on us. A Kish Cloud, chill, heavy and condensing on my clothes. Across to The Obelisk, hill one today, the cloud rolled in from the east, swirling along the valleys and brushing through the tops of candle-lit chestnut trees, standing in eerie silence. I commented to a couple of ghostly walkers that it was like being in a cold rain forest.

Down on White Rock strand, the beach appeared curiously detached from the main body of the Irish Sea, the grey fog merging into the the equally grey sea just a few metres offshore. Windless, air movement apparent as transient wisps. Almost no bird song nor gull cry, the only sound being the unseen eight-carraiged commuter trains and the lapping waters of the ebb tide. Do gannets and terns 'fish' in fog or is that like trying to hear the sound of one hand clapping?