TLDR – Walked to Shanganagh playground and Waste treatment plant near Shankill Dart station. Walked along the beach for a few kilometers. Stopped at Vico Bathing Place. Dart from Dalkey to Dun Laoghaire for lunch where the crowd scared us. We ran away home for Romayos instead – 24,976 steps
Out the door headed towards the beach
The weather in Ireland has been wet and windy the last few days; Thanks, hurricane Lorenzo. Sunday, finally we have a nice day. Nothing to force us to stay at home trapped in the house hiding from the weather. We bundled up the kids in jackets and gloves and took off on the LUAS to Cherrywood to start our 45-minute walk to the sewer treatment plant/kids play park. Once we crossed over the M50 from Cherrywood we came across gravel that looks to be going mostly in the direction we want to go – we better check it out
The gravel road took us over a creek to a junction where we went right instead of left walking along the river. Walking along a river is much cooler than walking up a hill. The right path eventually leads us to a dead end. We turned around and took the uphill path to the left which took us into a housing development about 9 minutes from the Killiney Dart station. The Millfam voted the gravel path to be a good route; we’ll take it again next time we do this walk. We stopped a Centra near the Dart station for some snacks then crossed over the Dart track headed towards the playground next to the sewage treatment plant. We did not stay too long at the park before Maddex yelled at the girls trying to protect his toy and we left. – Kids fight and yell, and we leave, thats how we roll.
Beach walk
It’s sunny and warm out. No one needs their jackets anymore. After the playground, the stroller has been converted into a Jacket, water and glove storage cart. A few minutes from the playground we found an opening in the fence we crossed through to make our way to the beach. The sun is out, the wind is low; Michelle and the kids are now in their happy places on a warm sunny beach. The river we walked along earlier passes next to the wastewater treatment plant. The River was raging there is no way we’re crossing it. We walked back up onto the tarmac path and crossed over the river on a bridge like a sensiable family.
Short walk down the beach we came upon another river to cross. Last time we were here a month or so ago this creek was mostly under the gavel. Today it was a full-blown creek requiring crossing. We’d have to backtrack a bit to get back on the path cross over this creek. I took my shoes off and carried everyone across one or two at a time. We kept on walking along the beach and made a few stops to climb some rocks, crush some rocks, dig in the sand, and stack some rocks until we made to the end of the walkable beach. From there it was up 15 flights of stairs with the stroller up and over the Dart track. Mom holding up the front and me holding up the rear of the stroller we made it.
The bathing place than home
The next stop down the road, back down the cliff to the beach is Vito Bathing place. The kids were starting to wear out by now, and walking down then up a mountain of stairs did not sound appealing. We asked the kids if they wanted to do it or not. The answer was a unanimous “let’s do it, we love adventure” Love these kids! The first half of the walk was a narrow sloping path until we came to some stairs. We parked the stroller off the path and hoped it would be there when we came back up and carried on down the stairs.
The bathing place looks like it started out as a cliff jumping spot people added stairs too, adding railings and a ladder too, then walled off a small tide pool to make it a bigger pool. Somewhere in the additions, they added a covered changing area too. There were a few slimy slippery spots near the edges we helped the kids over. Happy to report no one fell or ended up wet before we finished exploring and walked back up the hill
From the bathing place, we walked to the Dalkey Dart station and took it two stops to Sandycove. Across the street from the Sandycove dart station is a walking path directly to the people’s park where we going to purchase some lunch. Holy Moly the lines at nearly every food booth were 10 people plus deep, and the park was nearly standing room only. Nope, not going to happen; we decided to skip the park.
While Michelle was looking up how long we had to wait for the 7 bus home I took the kids across the street to a teddies ice cream truck with only a single person inline. Can’t feed them food, Ice cream is the next best thing. The bus was about 10 minutes out, so we ate the ice cream on the walk to the bus stop. After standing at the stop for about 10 minutes the bus that was due disappeared from the time tracker to be replaced by a bus that was 35 minutes out. Stupid ghost bus.
To kill some time we walked along the bus route three stops along the way home. Before the bus stop Maddex was starting to come down with a migraine; opps no drugs for him. We put him in the stroller covered his head to block the light and let him pass out pretty much until we were most of the way home on the LUAS. – Great day in the sun and sand 10 out of 10 will do it again.
The bonus pictures
