The Wicklow Way - Trees, Bogs and Water

We're taking a day off today. 

We walked fifty three miles over the past six days and I took about 600 photographs of mostly of trees, bogs and water, if you don't count the pictures of sheep.

Trees

Where they weren't part of a plantation, and doomed to be felled by their forty-fifth birthday, trees grew to a great height and age, and were so covered in moss, lichen, vines and holly that you could hardly see the tree.

Stands of beech trees flourished around Glendalough.

And there were signs of a tremendous urge to survive, like these silver birch, knocked over some time ago, but now growing upright.

Or this brand new pine tree, growing out of a stump.

Bogs

Where the weren't any trees on the Wicklow Way, there were blanket bogs, started around 7,000 years ago by humans clearing trees from the mountain tops. Clearing trees made things just right for soil acidification, the creation of "iron pan" which prevented drainage, and the accumulation, millimetre by millimetre, of peat. Early humans realized to their dismay that you couldn't grow anything in a peat bog. Then humans learned you could burn the peat. And so began another round of cutting.

But you can see why they call it "blanket" bog.

What are you looking at? Hybrid deer peeking just over the rise on the bog.

Bogs as far as the eye can see.

Bogs all around.

Bogs on Tribadden mountain.

Walkways have been built to protect the bog with a wish to regenerate the parts lost to human trodding.

Water

Ireland, like everywhere else, is seeing changes in weather patterns. For example, we were outside for six days at the end of April and didn't see a drop of rain. So, Kevin our guide explained, every waterfall we saw was a pale shadow of its normal self, shrunken by the lack of rainfall. They still seemed pretty cool. As did other bodies of water.

The whitest people in the world enjoying the lake by Glendalough.

Lynne and Keira at Glendalough.

An unidentified stream by the road, near Curtlestown.

Mine run-off above Glendalough.

Just at the left side of the photo, a white zig zag of a waterfall. Also apparent, allegedly, are some deer, or perhaps sheep or maybe even some cows, according to Kevin.

The Guinness lake.

The Poulanass waterfall.

The Avonmore River by Oldbridge - stocked with brown trout and waiting for your fishing hook.

Thanks for reading!

Tomorrow we're going to Belfast and the Giant's Causeway!

Karen

Wicklow Day Six - Enniskerry to Dublin

Sunny skies over our last six hours on the Wicklow Way.

Kevin had promised we would hear a cuckoo call sometime during our tour. This is the moment, on our last day, when we heard it. Kevin was beside himself. 

The law of perverse outcomes provides that the better prepared you are for rain, the less likely it is that it will rain.

But, this is Ireland. We thought we'd be idiots if we didn't pack rain gear.

So of course for the six days of our walking tour it did not rain.

I just wanted to say that, now that we're off the trail.

Today we walked up and down our last two mountains, with signs of civilization increasing in the environs, some of it recent: 

Some of it from the Bronze Age:

The Tribradden Cairn on top of Tribradden Mountain

There were signs of life:

A big bird, hunting

Future big bird prey: zillions of tadpoles

And then, suddenly, Dublin.

And here's the last shot of my four walking companions: Kevin, our guide, sisters Keira and Lynne, and Bruce. It was a special trip. These are special people.

I feel I could go home happy tomorrow, but we have four more days in Dublin, so there's more to come!

Thanks for reading!

Karen

Another sign of civilization:
the only portapotty in sixty miles
of the Wicklow Way

Wicklow Day Five - Roundwood to Enniskerry

Scottish Blackface triplet lambs by the path.

We're well into the outskirts of Dublin. But, our path on the Wicklow Way is not easier. We're just more experienced on the upgrades and the downgrades so it seems easier.  

Or so Kevin, our guide, has assured us.

The hobnail trail took us from just above Roundwood to Enniskerry.

On the way we stopped by the Guinness Lake, properly called Lough Tay, which gets its name not from the fact that the water is dark brown and has a cream-coloured layer at one end, but from the Guinness family themselves, who once owned all this land. That's Kevin's hand there, pointing.

We went up and down twice today. The mist kept the hills in the distance dim.

Once in Enniskerry, we hopped in a van that took us to a bed and breakfast that was part of a working farm. There, Robert the sheep farmer showed how Rover the collie herded the sheep. Robert filled us in on all of the stupid things the government has been asking farmers to do lately and Rover first peed on Keira's foot and then, after he'd bossed the sheep around a bit, he peed on mine. 

This is our last night on the Wicklow Way tour. Our destination tomorrow is Marlay Park, a large public space in a south Dublin suburb, about 9 kilometres as the crow flies from central Dublin and about 18 kilometres from where we are now. Too easy.

Thanks for reading!

Karen

Wicklow Day Four - Out of Glendalough to Roundwood

We left the tree farms and abandoned mine sites behind today. We hiked through old forests and farms abandoned in the famine, past the small prosperous hamlet of Oldbridge to Roundwood.

We did our usual five hour walk, with less mountain climbing, more straightforward hiking and a wide range of landscapes, from deep forests, to rural towns, to sheep pasture and farmland. 

Kevin finds a metaphor.

I'm getting used to the pace and demands of the daily walks. First we go up, and then we go down. We might do that twice in a day. Going up makes me really warm. Going down makes me cold. When we stop to eat, I feel the calories like fuel in my leg muscles. When we finally start talking about getting close to our destination, the only things I can think about are a clean toilet and a comfy chair. And a beer. 

Thanks for reading!

Karen

 

Wicklow Day Three - The Perfect Balance

Kevin, our guide, only appears to be telling us our day's hike will put us in the grave; he is actually pointing to our hike objectives on "The Spinc." Spinc is Irish for "spike" but also sounds a bit like "Sphynx" which is what local hill walkers call it. The rise of land we scaled today looks like neither a spike nor a sphinx.

Today Kevin acquiesced to our whining, and gave us an option less challenging than he'd planned (a 380 metre climb instead of a 500 metre climb). We climbed up one side of the Glendalough valley and down the other. Along the way were stunning views, feral goats, hybrid deer, a lake once rendered lifeless by acid mine runoff, and the secluded retreat of the region's most famous saint.

Bruce stands in as Ireland's national treasure.

Before they strip mined trees from this area, mining companies took out lead, gold and other ore. To feed themselves, the men working the mines brought in goats. The miners are long gone. The goats, gone feral, remain. 

The local deer are a hybrid of Sika (introduced from Japan in the 19th century) and the native red deer. They seem half acclimatized to humans ... keeping their distance but not entirely fearful.

Glendalough means the valley of two lakes. The large "upper" lake received the run off from the mine. 

The sign says no swimming.

Along the shore of the large lake, Saint Kevin is said to have kept his monk's cell, what is now called "Kevin's bed."

And, sure enough, there is a creepy cave there. 

We completed our walk in about five hours, ending at the same spot we began.

We're having a wonderful time, and it hasn't killed us yet.

Thanks for reading.

Karen