Hiking and Bagels

Looking at Bray Head from Bray

Yesterday I woke to a beautiful, clear, bright, wind free day. I was very pleased because I had arranged to go hiking with my friend Sally and after spending the weekend feeling rotten I was feeling much better (thanks antibiotics) and dying to get some fresh air and exercise. We had decided to hike from Bray to Greystones where we would have a coffee, or in my case a peppermint tea, and get the dart back. The walk started off well, the weather was perfect and clear and we could even see a seal basking in the sun, then we saw another and another and another. My camera wasn't good enough to get a picture but we suddenly noticed that seal no. 3 had a square head and seal no. 4 was soooo not a seal. In fact we were admiring buoys although Sally is convinced the first was a seal, I'm not so sure!

Looking over to Dalkey and Killiney.

Shortly after we came to a sign warning us that the path ahead was closed so we decided to carry on and see how long before we got to the closed bit. Eventually we got to the barrier but saw that a new path had been trodden and we could continue our walk. So continue we did when we came to a fork in the path we could see a barrier on the left path so took the right which led us to a dead end. Here there was a path through the undergrowth but that came to an abrupt end. We had been walking for well over an hour and Greystones was within site whereas the path back to Bray was long and already trodden. I found a waterfall and suggested walking down the side of it. We were having an adventure and I love adventures and always the first to jump in with a (some may say crazy) idea. Sally felt she might fall flat and suggested we cut through the fields.

I have to add here that had we climbed down the waterfall I would have been the one to fall flat on my face as I am known as the clumsy one! There's a story involvimg the Avon Gorge and me running down it but I think Mum plans to tell that one!

I've done plenty of walking in fields and know that some have right of way for the public and some don't. I guessed these probably didn't so was a bit scared of bumping into a farmer, (give me the waterfall any day)! So we walked around the edge of two fields and could see no sign of the road. We were also getting further away from the path and Greystones and closer to the farmhouse. Thankfully Sally suggested turning back, I was very pleased as I had visions of a big farmer and his gun coming after us.

We walked back to the fork in the path ( I looked wistfully at the waterfall begging me to climb down) and went down the other path. When we came to the barrier we could climbaround it and continued onwards to Greystones. We shortly came to the reason for the barriers:

As you see the path has suffered from erosion quite badly just in this place. I hope they fix it soon because it is a lovely walk on a clear day. We made in into Greystones and luckily for me Ben was going to play with a friend after school so we had plenty of time to mooch around Greystones and enjoy a bagel (sausages and cream cheese) for lunch.