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I woke up this morning stiff as a fricking board, and as a result slept in two hours past the time I'd meant to be up. But guess what! Today, that was just fine. Because today, instead of sticking my nose into dusty books and academic articles, I was going for a hike.
A short hike, and one that started in the afternoon, because even on a Mental Health Day, articles on Social Complexity in Prehistoric Cyprus still exercise a siren call. But eventually I got going, and together with the long-suffering parent, headed out to Howth Head for two hours of joyful walking.
Howth's a brilliant place. I spent most of my childhood there, and going back every so often to walk Deer Park or around the cliffs is a kind of ritual. At this time of year, with the gorse in full bloom and the rhodendrons just beginning to peek out among the green, it's beautiful.
And let's not forget the fact that views from the Ben of Howth and Black Linn - I've never hiked Shielmartin, since to do so one has to cross a golf course full of enthusiastic hard flying objects - are incredible, on a clear day. (On a foggy one, sometimes you can't see your feet.) You can see clear across the north county, and south as far as Dalkey, not to mention the city, and the islands of Ireland's Eye, with its Martello tower and ruined church, and most distant Lambay, opposite the harbour. (The Vikings named them. You can tell.) And Howth Castle, of which the oldest bits still standing (the gatehouse) date to the 15th century.
So the parent parked us in the hotel carpark, and we made a brisk run of it up to the Ben. It's only twenty minutes up, give or take, up a path almost like a tunnel through rhododendron bushes. The view is well worth it. If flickr ever lets me upload my pictures, I'll share 'em.
The top is barren rock and gorse. Two sides are mostly sheer: one side slopes - through many overgrown trees and bushes and the steep path up - to an unused reservoir: the final side slopes more easily down to the dip that lies between the Ben and Black Linn. Standing here, you can see forever. Twenty kilometers easy on an ordinary day: farther, today. And I had my pocket binoculars in our backpack (one of the reasons the parent still consents to go walking with a bouncy twenty-something-year-old: I carry all our crap) which meant we could even see the airport.
We carried on down into the dip. The path was clearer today than it usually is: it's been such a long winter, despite the fact the gorse is out everywhere, under the trees, the ferns haven't had time to grow back from their winter-brown absence. The dip - it's a little gulley: it runs from the flat flank of the golf course to the edge of the reservoir and along towards Howth village proper - is a bit of a wind tunnel, and it was weird to be there, surrounded by new green growth, and not a fern in sight.
Where the slopes of the Ben are forested and bushy, Black Linn's a barren scar of rock. Only gorse and heather grows on it, though in sheltered spots the gorse can grow over head height. It's half an hour from the top of the Ben to the top of Black Linn, if you're pushing: the slope up to the peak is at a greater than 45 degree angle in places. At the top there's a hearth pit: it's been there since before the parent was born and could well be older than a couple of centuries. I've never had the opportunity to try and track down its date.
From Black Linn, there's a couple of ways you can go. If you have all day, you can head up by the quarry for the summit and the cliffs, and hike down for a couple hours to the Asgard Road and the harbour or around by the Bailey Lighthouse to Red Rock and Sutton Strand. Since we didn't have more than an hour to spare, and we wanted to arrive back at the car in timely fashion (these other options rather work better when your goal is the Dart station or a bus stop), we opted to head up towards the radio mast by the quarry and circle back around the shoulder of Black Linn to the Ben, and return the way we came.
And man, was it beautiful. It was still and empty up there, a handful of birds in the heather and the wind in the gorse just chill enough to cut the warmth of the sun and make walking with a pack comfortable. The area of Howth Head is protected by legislation as an area of natural beauty or something or other, legal nonsense that for once actually makes sense.
Two hours of walking, and my calves are letting me know all about it now. But it was worth it.
( Howth Head: )
And now I return to the mines of JSTOR for an hour or two. Wish me luck. And give flickr a kick for me, so it starts uploading my pictures.
A short hike, and one that started in the afternoon, because even on a Mental Health Day, articles on Social Complexity in Prehistoric Cyprus still exercise a siren call. But eventually I got going, and together with the long-suffering parent, headed out to Howth Head for two hours of joyful walking.
Howth's a brilliant place. I spent most of my childhood there, and going back every so often to walk Deer Park or around the cliffs is a kind of ritual. At this time of year, with the gorse in full bloom and the rhodendrons just beginning to peek out among the green, it's beautiful.
And let's not forget the fact that views from the Ben of Howth and Black Linn - I've never hiked Shielmartin, since to do so one has to cross a golf course full of enthusiastic hard flying objects - are incredible, on a clear day. (On a foggy one, sometimes you can't see your feet.) You can see clear across the north county, and south as far as Dalkey, not to mention the city, and the islands of Ireland's Eye, with its Martello tower and ruined church, and most distant Lambay, opposite the harbour. (The Vikings named them. You can tell.) And Howth Castle, of which the oldest bits still standing (the gatehouse) date to the 15th century.
So the parent parked us in the hotel carpark, and we made a brisk run of it up to the Ben. It's only twenty minutes up, give or take, up a path almost like a tunnel through rhododendron bushes. The view is well worth it. If flickr ever lets me upload my pictures, I'll share 'em.
The top is barren rock and gorse. Two sides are mostly sheer: one side slopes - through many overgrown trees and bushes and the steep path up - to an unused reservoir: the final side slopes more easily down to the dip that lies between the Ben and Black Linn. Standing here, you can see forever. Twenty kilometers easy on an ordinary day: farther, today. And I had my pocket binoculars in our backpack (one of the reasons the parent still consents to go walking with a bouncy twenty-something-year-old: I carry all our crap) which meant we could even see the airport.
We carried on down into the dip. The path was clearer today than it usually is: it's been such a long winter, despite the fact the gorse is out everywhere, under the trees, the ferns haven't had time to grow back from their winter-brown absence. The dip - it's a little gulley: it runs from the flat flank of the golf course to the edge of the reservoir and along towards Howth village proper - is a bit of a wind tunnel, and it was weird to be there, surrounded by new green growth, and not a fern in sight.
Where the slopes of the Ben are forested and bushy, Black Linn's a barren scar of rock. Only gorse and heather grows on it, though in sheltered spots the gorse can grow over head height. It's half an hour from the top of the Ben to the top of Black Linn, if you're pushing: the slope up to the peak is at a greater than 45 degree angle in places. At the top there's a hearth pit: it's been there since before the parent was born and could well be older than a couple of centuries. I've never had the opportunity to try and track down its date.
From Black Linn, there's a couple of ways you can go. If you have all day, you can head up by the quarry for the summit and the cliffs, and hike down for a couple hours to the Asgard Road and the harbour or around by the Bailey Lighthouse to Red Rock and Sutton Strand. Since we didn't have more than an hour to spare, and we wanted to arrive back at the car in timely fashion (these other options rather work better when your goal is the Dart station or a bus stop), we opted to head up towards the radio mast by the quarry and circle back around the shoulder of Black Linn to the Ben, and return the way we came.
And man, was it beautiful. It was still and empty up there, a handful of birds in the heather and the wind in the gorse just chill enough to cut the warmth of the sun and make walking with a pack comfortable. The area of Howth Head is protected by legislation as an area of natural beauty or something or other, legal nonsense that for once actually makes sense.
Two hours of walking, and my calves are letting me know all about it now. But it was worth it.
( Howth Head: )
And now I return to the mines of JSTOR for an hour or two. Wish me luck. And give flickr a kick for me, so it starts uploading my pictures.
