June 25, 1990: Marley Park Hotel to Knockree Youth Hostel
A last view of Dublin
It was overcast but bright on the morning of Monday, June 25th. We went upstairs to the dining area and while Gavan fetched Elizabeth from her first floor room I reminded the elderly waiter that we had ordered sandwiches from Dervla the night before. As might be expected, all knowledge of this transaction had vaporized – but one of the kitchen ladies set to with a will and our lunch was ready by the time we had completed the traditional fried breakfast. That is, Gavan and I had the fry-up; Elizabeth never got past the cereal. Gavan wanted me to admit that this was the greatest breakfast I had ever had and I did not have the heart to tell him that this is what every English landlady would serve her b&b guests as well.
I paid with a Eurocheck and we were ready to depart at 9:10. So the great adventure began with an awkward walk against the whizzing traffic on College Road as we headed west to pass the southern entrance to Marley Park one last time. Then we preceded downhill to a junction with Kilmashogue Lane – where we turned south with four magpies. I was surprised by the narrowness of this suburban lane; it had looked so grand from the sketch map in Malone’s book. We gained altitude steeply as it rounded a few corners, finally depositing us in the Kilmashogue Wood car park. Fine views of Dublin were again available from this spot; we took the lower of two forest roads and headed uphill, following a southeasterly direction. I used the occasion to tell my young friends something of the history of my first walk on the Pennine Way; they were, unknowingly, living out my love affair with the long distance footpath as I spoke to them.
Trees obscured our views as we climbed higher. After two steep zigzags, however, we had passed the 1000-foot mark and could see down to civilization on our left whenever a gap in the forest permitted this. The sun was out now and so were the flies. Gavan had insisted that we would not be bitten by any flying insects on Irish soil, but I had brought a tube of insect repellent anyway. I used this to lather my sweaty head and bare arms but this did not really dissuade the flies. Gavan tried sticking bracken fronds in his hat, as Janet and Dorothy had done on the SWPCP, but this didn’t seem to work either. He looked quite comical in his bracken hat and red Stanford sweatshirt (which he wore every time he wasn’t wearing his white Harvard one). Elizabeth and I both ended up with itchy bites all over our arms from some Irish insect, flying or otherwise.
An arrow post on our forest track pointed up a ride line and we switched from east to south to climb it in the sun. At a junction I expected to turn right but there was no indication of a change of direction on the ground and Gavan climbed up a bit to confirm that there was another arrow waiting up ahead. Near the top of a rise we headed right, descending to our last Dublin view before turning our back on civilization and heading south again toward Fairy Castle.
The track we were following continued on up the mountain but Gavan and Elizabeth spotted an arrow post pointing straight ahead. This we took as an invitation to head directly south to the ridgeline ahead, following the “faint path” indicated in Malone. There was not much evidence of a path, but we pushed forward at great risk to our ankles along a series of depressions in the vegetation. We persevered until we came up to a path descending from the mountaintop; here we were able to look into Glencullen, a lovely valley that stood invitingly below us.
Glencullen, with Sugarloaf in the distance
Gavan introduced a brief game of “I Spy,” but there really wasn’t enough variety in the landscape to make this very interesting. Down we bounced, moving at a very good rate, with encouraging arrows assuring us that we were on the right track. We left the ridge line in brilliant sun, breezes having scattered the last of the flies, and continued south along the boundaries of a forest, past the back of a farm, and at last down to a tarmac road above the Glencullen River.
Here we turned east again, following the roadway for over a mile, past farms and a children’s study center, and even being tempted by the advertisement of a pub in the next hamlet. But I didn’t really know how far away it was – so we turned down a road that headed steeply for the river, nodding to some ladies in conversation in front of their bungalows and soon reaching the Boranaltry Bridge. I suggested that we should look for a lunch spot, which we started to do. Of course I wanted a dry place to sit down and some shade from the occasionally bright sun, but first we had to leave our road for a steeply rising boreen which crossed a farmyard – where we were greeted noisily by a dog with bristles growing from his snout.
Around the corner at the top of the farmstead we found a nice place to plop down and here we had our sandwiches. Gavan and I had ham, Elizabeth chicken. There were lovely views down Glencullen from this spot. I began to see that liquid would be a problem for us – since Gavan was already sucking the life out of his bottle, and soon after we reached the top of the boreen and turned left on a forestry road we began to search for a likely looking source of pure water.
Gavan climbed down to a stream that had tunneled under the road and filled his canteen with some peaty liquid – but I taste-tested this concoction and found it too rusty to drink. We then headed southeast again on a forest track, following it without change of direction for some time. Eventually it came to an end at a turntable that also brought us directly up to the Dublin-Wicklow county boundary. I sent the others through a gap in the foliage while I had a pee, then rejoined them for the start of a peaty traverse of open heathland. Fortunately things were pretty dry underfoot; this would be a very squelchy section after rain. We followed the edge of a forest, without much change in our 1500-foot elevation, then followed our path up to a stile and continued on a narrow path to the top of a wonderful descent through the dark pine canopy of the Curtlestown Wood State Forest.
We played a little more “I Spy” (F for Foxglove and Fungi, N for Needles). There were more twists to the descending forest road than Malone had bothered with in his sketch map, but little ambiguity about how to proceed. On the last of the southeasterly stretches Gavan insisted on taking my photo (it was mile 1700 for me, but he did not know this) against a backdrop of foxglove spires that covered the bare hillside below us. Then he got out his walkman and tuned in to the start of the Ireland-Rumania World Cup game.
We reached a valley bottom and turned right on tarmac, then left again on a hard surface that took a southerly detour around the west flank of Knockcree. The weather was getting grayer, matching Gavan’s mood: Rumania were doing better in the early moments of the match than Ireland.
We found our turnoff into the Lackan Wood State Forest and rested a bit on the stiles next to the inevitable forest barrier. This next stretch seemed to go on much too long; nor did the road end at a turntable as the guidebook indicated. I was getting quite nervous but we did at last find an arrow pointing downhill and this reassured me that we had not come too far. I’m afraid that we were finding Malone’s maps to be too impressionistic for complete comfort; they captured critical details at turnoffs well – but sometimes they telescoped distances and at other times they elongated them and thus it was hard to tell if you had reached the right spot for a turn-off in the first place.
A rough track lead downhill to a tarmac road, where timber was piled like pickup sticks. Here we turned left but the Knockcree youth hostel was only a few steps away, not the half a kilometer suggested by Malone. Nevertheless we were happy to see it, having covered all of our fourteen miles by 4:45. There was no one about so we had a look into all the buildings; they were very primitive and well below the standard I had found in even simple grade hostels in the UK. The whitewashed wall facing the roadway bore the letters IRA in faint blue paint. A middle aged German couple who had a private room here came strolling in but they had nothing to offer on the whereabouts of the warden.
At Knockree Youth Hostel
This cheerful hippie soon showed up with his girlfriend and relieved me of my prepaid voucher. He showed Elizabeth to her quarters in the women’s building – where all the beds were hers to choose from – and showed Gavan and me to the last chamber in the men’s section. Then he went into his private quarters and put his radio in the window and blasted the football match into the courtyard for the next hour and a half – as the game went into extra time and finally a penalty shootout, won by the Irish. A fine mist began to fall during the latter stages of the game but this did not seem to faze Elizabeth – who continued to lie on her back beneath the blasting window in a kind of fetal position.
Gavan and I went off to the nearby lumber pile and got some kindling to start a peat fire with. Then I gathered together all the food and the three of us, after a little instruction on the use of the stove from the warden, got started on our spaghetti and peas. I also made some coffee for Gavan and myself. We were doing quite well until the Krauts shouldered in, trying to get their Irish stew and beans going on the same stovetop we were using, instead of waiting just a few minutes until we were through. The lady Kraut also snatched a pan from the top of the refrigerator that I had been using to catch a drip from the ceiling. Finally a Swedish family showed up and took over the rest of the kitchen as well.
Our meal was filling, that is the best that can be said for it, or for the fig newtons that represented dessert. Elizabeth had set a table for us in the dining room and now did most of the washing up. Gavan got out the Trivial Pursuit board and the three of us had a game, which I won after a very slow start. I also told them about my second Pennine Walk, the one-day fiasco of 1976. We would have liked to use the fire, but the Swedes seized our kindling and planted themselves down in front of the warmth. So, just at about the time of total darkness, and having had enough of the giggling Nordics, we all went to bed.
Toilet paper had been added as an afterthought to the loo in the men’s room, but there was no light here and not much hot water. Gavan and I did have a bright light in our area of the dorm and we were soon spread out over several beds with our gear. I had rented some sheet sleeping bags and we climbed into these for another long conversation in the dark as Gavan continued to ask me all those questions about life and love that a student would have felt reluctant to ask a teacher, but a friend could ask a friend.
To continue with the next stage of our walk you need: