3 Weeks in Ireland - Time on Feet // Ep 08
Welcome to episode 8 of Time On Feet. In the last episode I showed you highlights from the time that we spent this summer in the Alps, which was followed by an adventure in the Dolomites, and from Italy we made our way to Ireland for the rest of September, for our last 3 weeks of our 2 months of travel in Europe for 2024. And the weather could not have been better so we got a ton of amazing footage. So grab a beverage and get comfortable because I'm going to show you highlights from all of that now, and thanks to Salomon, to Coros and to Tourism Ireland for supporting this one.
After spending close to a week visiting with friends in Cork and Limerick while we caught up on a bit of work, we did a 3-day fastpack on a route called the Wicklow Way starting in Tinahely and finishing in the seaside resort town of Bray, just south of Dublin. The route is approximately 130 km long crossing the Wicklow mountains and finishing in Dublin, but we did a modified version covering a total of just over 100 km in 3 days, using our third day to do a recce of the EcoTrail Wicklow course that we'd be racing at the end of the month. We stayed in hotels each night and even had bag transfers so this one was pretty luxurious, but I'm saving that adventure for an entirely separate documentary. It was then time to pick up our camper van to start a 10-day road trip. Okay we are at Lazy Days VW campers picking up our camper van Indie that is going to be our home for the next 10 days as we tour around Ireland and Northern Ireland, so let's go check it out.
Let's meet Indie! So these straps are just put there for convenience at the moment... Small Volkswagen campers like ours are just the perfect way to see Ireland, there's a lot of small country roads, really the roads are very small, if you're in a giant motor home you're going to be restricted, with one of these vans you can just follow all those small roads, you can get to all those special spots and you have to be adventurous you know, you have to be prepared to get off the beaten track and follow all those little roads down to the coast and beaches and you'll find some special spots where you can be alone, at the coast you know with the sunrise or sunset and nobody else around and Ireland is still that kind of place where you can really, you can really get back to basics and you know get off the beaten track and get away from all the other tourists and you know so yeah it's and these are the perfect vans to do it in. I got this. I got this. First up on the agenda was to drive all the way across the country to Doolin, a small village on the East Coast which would be our starting point for our journey along the Wild Atlantic Way.
Well after a 4-hour drive we have made it all the way from the east coast to the west coast of Ireland, to the town of Doolin, it's a beautiful evening, the winds are calm and we can see across the water here, the Cliffs of Moher. It's so beautiful I cannot believe this is Ireland, we're so lucky like, absolutely no wind, so pleasant, I'm overdressed. What do you think? It's pretty nice in here. The next morning we got up extra early to explore the nearby sites. Our main objective for the day, the Cliffs of Moher.
The Cliffs are one of the country's most iconic natural landmarks. Stretching for 14 km along the Atlantic Ocean, they reach a height of 214 meters and are home to an estimated 30,000 pairs of birds representing more than 20 species, including the atlantic puffins. After leaving Doolin we continued along the coast to Salt Hill so that we could visit Connemara National Park the following morning, but not before checking out a diving spot that we'd driven by on our way to camp. Should we go jump in the ocean? Yeah. I forgot to... plug my nose. So we are in Connemara National Park and I'm just mapping out a route here for us to follow on the Coros app, that I'm going to load up onto my watch, up to Diamond Hill.
That's our summit up there. It is very hot today, totally blue skies, it feels like mid-summer, very lucky this week with the weather. Our next stop was the town of Westport so that we could climb Croagh Patrick, a famous Christian pilgrimage site in County Mayo.
Okay it's Thursday mid-morning and today we are summiting Croagh Patrick. It was quite foggy when we got up so we've been kind of waiting for it to burn off, we can now see the summit here and we're hoping to have a good view from the top. Croagh Patrick is considered a holy Mountain and it's a pilgrimage that many people take. There has apparently been a church on its summit since the 5th century,
the current one dates back to I believe the early 20th century. That evening we continued north to Strandhill to prepare for a different kind of activity the next morning, but not before being treated to another amazing sunset. We're just down here at Atlantic Surf School and we're going to get some private surf lessons. I think we picked a good day for it. I'm a little nervous, I've never surfed before.
This the best day in the whole year, probably the best week, the whole summer was just like windy every single day and raining. And what are we expecting today, what's the forecast? It's pretty good, we have like two to three foot waves, the wind is offshore it's not much wind but it's just perfect you're going to see now it's nice and clean so I think it's going to be, it's going to be a good day! Nice! Yeah lot of waves. Surfing in Ireland, who knew? Who knew! Yeah Yeah that was lot of fun and we saw two dolphins! That's right! That's amazing.
And a seal. And a seal! We then hit the road to make our way to Dunlewey to check in for the Seven Sisters Skyline 30k, which we were running the next morning. Yeah so this is the seventh edition of the Seven Sisters this year, so this year we have over 400 registered, we have a new 16k event, the 30k event and the 55K event. So the 30k and the 55k are part of the UK Ireland Sky Running Series so it's brought an international flavour to the field and some really good runners out of Britain and beyond. All right we got our bibs and our tracker. This is the last mountain, Mount Errigal, beautiful, last few years has been terrible weather, yeah this year you're going to enjoy, the ground has dried up a load.
Okay so hard ground hopefully. Usually pretty boggy, usually bog up to knees, very soggy and bogy, but tomorrow hopefully we'll be fast going. The race would be finishing in Dunlewey, in County Donegal, which is in the Northwestern most region of Ireland. The 30k route runs along the top of all the Seven Sisters in the Derryveagh Mountains from Errigal to Muckish, a course that's known for its variability in terrain and its incredible beauty.
Just driving to our campsite for the night and the light is just incredible right now. After dropping off this summit here, we're going to run I believe down and behind this Abbey here and around the back side of this lake to the finish line. It's going to be amazing. Okay here we go, the race starts in just a couple of minutes.
My second time running the race. Yeah. Yeah last year was my first and broke my ankle after coming down Muckish, off the first peak, so yeah just happy to finish today I think. Yeah Okay so a good sort of 3 km warmup on our approach along the tarmac there, but now we climb This trail is unreal, so apparently they used to, there's some machinery down there, they used to quarry sand up here to make glass, apparently the workers got extra money for carrying fuel, gallon, gallon drums of fuel. Nearing the top of this first climb up in the clag.
I'm really glad I loaded the route on my watch cuz you can't see anything up here, it's really easy to lose the trail. First aid station there, I didn't bother stopping though I've got lots of food and water and so far I've only fallen twice. Okay I survived the first descent, it was very exciting and everything I hate. So now we're at about an hour 15 and I've just passed the first of three aid stations and making my way up the second big climb here. There we go, I found the mud on that one almost lost a shoe.
I got stuck. Man down! Nice job! We've been passing the 50k runners going in the opposite direction, doing a big out and back, basically doing double what we're doing. Nice work.
That's climb number two done and at the top there oh my gosh it's very boggy, muddy, like that shoe-eating mud. Can't see too much up here. That mountain over there in the clouds is where we're going to next. Beautiful.
Hi there! Hello hello. Passed through another aid station there, I did grab some pringles and a cookie and some coke, bit more water and I can see our two final climbs directly in front of me. Okay 3 hours in, 17 km down and got about 800 meters more climbing to do eventually. I think before that I'm about to hit the second aid station here somewhere and yeah the clouds have finally cleared at least down here, and it's really pretty.
Bit of a view, I think it'll clear up by the time I reach the next one. Looks like we've caught up to the 18k racers now too. A couple from the lead pack in the 30k, nice job guys...
So that peak there is the big mountain we could see from town yesterday when we did the race check in, it's pretty intimidating from the town but we're already up high here, looks like we're going to drop down just, I don't know, 100-150 meters and then we climb the rest and I think that's it for uphill for today. Okay down we go. Hey nice work.
Wow I don't think I've ever had so much fun on a descent like that. Okay we're on a little stretch of road here and we're going to drop down around the back side of this lake and then back up through town, about 6 km to go. Thank you! I had you in my sights! I knew you did! Nice job! It's hard eh? It was so hard! The bogs almost swallowed me, I needed, someone had to pull me out! Oh they did? That's all, it's all part of the experience. We'd now head East and into Northern Ireland, stopping first in Derry so that we could spend the day exploring the city. I'll be your guide on this tour of our beautiful beautiful city, one of the most historical cities in Ireland, one of the most historical cities in the world... We're both feeling a little stiff today after the race yesterday so this is actually a good pace, recovery walking tour.
Derry is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in Ireland, it's known for its well-preserved 17th century walls and for its role in both the history of Ireland and the troubles in Northern Ireland. The clay core was important because when a cannonball hit the wall the stone wall or a cannonball landed here, the clay core absorbed the impact of the cannon, so the cannon ball didn't do much damage nor did it bounce from here into the city. If it's been a solid surface that the cannonball landed here would have bounced into the city and done damage.
The gravestones go back as far as 1642. I find the history of Ireland so interesting and this city has played such an important part in it for hundreds of years. My daughters have never seen the British Army on our streets, my daughters have never seen explosions, my daughters have never seen riots, my daughters when they meet people for the first time they don't ask themselves is this person Catholic or a Protestant, they meet the people and accept them for what they are. Unfortunately when I grew up we asked that question, times have moved on, the next generation and the generation after that is the future of our city and the future of our country. Okay folks we'll move on. Wow! So we have arrived in Northern Ireland and tomorrow morning we're going to go check out the Giants Causeway and we actually have special permission to fly the drone first thing in the morning, so let's just hope that our luck with the weather here continues to hold. Pretty cool to have gotten this to ourselves before everyone else arrives, there's a couple people here and I suspect the buses will be coming soon, but this was a pretty special experience.
So these rocks, these pillars they were formed 60 million years ago when molten lava made contact with water and cooled suddenly, although there's a version of the story involving a giant who made these which is much more fun and hence the name. Over there you can see the trail that we're going to run later. Oh yeah. The Causeway Coastal Way stretches about 52 km along the rugged northern coast, it passes through some of the most scenic landscapes in Northern Ireland, including the Giant's Causeway as well as Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, which would be our next stop. Okay we're here at Carrick-a-Rede to go across the rope bridge, and fishermen used to erect a rope bridge across over to Carrick-a-Rede Island here to check their salmon nets and today the National Trust, they operate a rope bridge for tourists so we're going to go check it out .
1900... with today's wind it would be a little exciting. We then headed to Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, located on the eastern coast. Belfast is known for its rich history, industrial heritage and its role in the peace process that helped bring an end to the troubles. It's also the birthplace of the HMS Titanic and its ship building heritage is celebrated at the world famous Titanic Belfast Museum.
We had just one more stop on our road trip to make in Newcastle, where we planned to summit Slieve Donard, the highest mountain in Northern Ireland. Well it is our last day in the van, it's our last day on the road trip and this morning we're going to go climb a mountain right up there. So we are in the Mourne Mountains, just outside of Newcastle, we're climbing its highest peak today, Slieve Donard, it's much cooler now that we've returned to the east coast, closing in on late September now so our luck with the weather may be coming to an end here, we'll see but hopefully we'll get a bit of a view from the summit. Got about 800 meters to climb over a 10 km return trip, as we follow for the most part the Glen River here on the Glen River trail which so far is beautiful. We're just reaching the summit and there's a little patch of blue above us here, we might get lucky. Well I'm glad we brought the extra clothing, we have puffy jackets and hard shells, waterproof pants so we could wait out the weather there, but I think that was our window so we're heading back down now.
Our road trip had come to an end, and so we returned to Dublin, the capital of the Republic of Ireland, to explore some of its attractions. The Guinness Storehouse was a little over the top but we did get certified in how to pour a proper pint. We then headed back to Bray just south of Dublin where we had a couple of days buffer to prepare for one more adventure, racing the EcoTrail Wicklow. I ran the 50 miler and Audrée the 50k and we both had a blast but, and you probably saw this coming, that story I'm going to save for a separate film coming sometime in the new year. We had such a good time on this trip and our entire 2 months in Europe.
Of course go back and watch the other episodes in the series here for highlights from all of that if you haven't already. We'll be announcing very soon the group trips that we'll be hosting in 2025 so stay tuned to the newsletter to be the first to hear about those and check out our new designs like this one that we have in our merch store. I'll mostly be hibernating in the edit suite here now as I try to catch up on editing the rest of the films that I shot this year, but our season it turns out isn't over just yet; we've got one more big adventure coming up as we head to Hong Kong in November, so stay tuned for lots more.
2024-10-20 09:12
