WHEN WALKING

Marlay Park to Knockree: 20km

Proper Walking

It is Friday morning and I have been two days in Ireland already, visiting Piotr. He has introduced me to Dublin in the best possible way, with a series of curated walks. These deserve a post of their own, which they shall get.

After a fine breakfast, we set off from the flat in Clondalkin. I go to the bus stop opposite to go to the start of the Wicklow Way and Piotr runs for another bus to work. Now I’m on my own.

Despite the buses being early and me making all the connections, I still leave an hour late from the shopping centre cafe at Marlay Park as an elegant older man at the table next to me, tells me all about his time working in Japan. We even practise my few phrases and I involuntarily bow as I leave the table.

I set off through Marlay Park and as I start walking up a steep road on the other side, immediately a lady starts to talk to me about the walk. She then waves down and says hello to the man she presumes to be my companion, who is walking up the road behind me. He is quick to disown me, but we walk for a bit and chat.

Liam comes from just near the start of the Wicklow Way, which he did in 1988 when it opened. He’s been living in Cornwall for years, but is thinking of retiring early and wants to come back home. Today is a refamiliarisation with the hills.

At first, I’m always turning back for the views over Dublin. I’m very grateful to Piotr for taking me to the Howth peninsular, which sticks out to sea at the far end of Dublin Bay. I love distant views of places I have been. As the day progresses, the Great Sugar Loaf mountain, which Piotr had described to me, starts to dominate the view. Again, I am delighted to know what I’m looking at.

Eventually the path turns into something I don’t quite understand. I seem to be jumping over stone water conduits every few of metres. My legs are starting to feel it.

There’s a few people around. Not crowds, but it’s a regular walking place. I feel quite proud of myself because it looks like proper mountain, and I don’t really do proper mountain walks. Jumping from rock to rock, with bogs in the distance, makes me feel like a real hiker for a bit.

As I’m about to get down the last rocky staircase to Knockree, I pause to say a prayer for my knees. A lovely man on his way up pauses to say a prayer for his lungs. He tells me that if I get to the hostel by six o’clock, I can see his friend singing a song in Gaelic.

“I’ve never heard him say a word in Gaelic before,” he laughs, but he’s not staying.

When I get to the hostel, there’s no one there, just me and a German girl and a lot of cars, probably here to hear the man sing his song. For a long time, I think the girl’s from Galway, but I misunderstood, she’s just come from Galway. I waste an awful lot of time looking up why the Galway accent sounds like the German accent before I realise.

She’s extraordinarily friendly, waiting for a friend who, it turns out, is an American she’d met at the hostel a month ago. The German girl has been walking the whole of Ireland, and the American girl has flown back from Los Angeles but has flown back again for the meeting.

I go to sleep on the dormitory mezzanine, which is as posh as a youth hostel gets, and dream in German.