This was my first time in Ireland and a complete joy. I stayed in an airbnb located exactly on the Wicklow Way for three days, so the window for good weather was pretty narrow. The day I arrived from Dublin was raining cats and dogs, and I had to keep expectations low, especially considering that I didn’t drive and hadn’t the courage to do wild camping yet. After all, I didn’t expect walking here to be too tough and it should serve as a warm-up for the upcoming Carrauntoohil and co. However, despite dismal weather forecast, the next day was mostly sunny and I did the Spink valley route. The view was really stunning, but it was pretty busy since the route was fairly straightforward and easy. My hosts Rene and Aoife (definitely the most beautiful female name I ever know), who had tons of knowledge about nearby mountains, recommended the Scarr mountain not far from our place, mentioning the 817-m Tonelagee in passing, which was a bit further away. The selling points of this route included great view, far fewer people, moderate difficulty but largely natural trails — unlike the Spink path which was well-paved with logs, kudos to the road builders though.

I knew doing both mountains in one go could be strenuous for a single-day walk, but rain failed to come and I was simply too excited to not try. It turned out that I was so excited I left in a hurry and forgot to pack my water bottle, and I only realized it nearly half-way and couldn’t bother to return. There should be a car park flanked by the two mountains so I planned to beg for some water there. Fingers crossed…



So at nearly 11 am I started walking north along the newly-paved road towards Oldbridge. The official route to Scarr should be further north, but I decided to turn left into a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it small opening immediately past a car park to save some time. This very lightly trended trail enabled me to almost make a beeline to Scarr — at the cost of very steep slopes and many spiky bushes troubling my legs (thick trousers should do the trick, but not in such a warm day anyway). It was not long before I walked too fast and hurt my left ankle when not getting a firm footing on a particularly steep part. The pain was alright so I kept on, just seizing the day!




After about half an hour the view before my eyes cleared out. The green spiky things were much smaller and shorter now. I stopped to catch my breath, turning back and around to take in a peaceful farm where horses and cows were resting and eating and forests and mountain ranges looming in the distance. I particularly enjoyed the bright purple heathers after previously visiting the British Isles only in Sept. and Oct. when their colors dim. Now the trail became clear, gently zigzagging toward the top. In addition to those cute sheep grazing casually, I met a lovely couple who came the opposite direction and was walking “loosely” along the Wicklow Way, with their final destination Dublin. They said they’d consider taking public transportation if weather was not good after Wicklow. Why not! I should learn to be this realistic too…





The rock pile at the top of Scarr was finally in view. It had been cloudy for some time now but luckily, rain was nowhere to be seen and wind was ok. Granted, cloudy sky makes photos far less appealing, but I personally prefer it to perfectly sunny weather as lights in cloudy days lend the landscape more layers and a sense of solemnity while sunlight makes everything so vivid in color to the point of appearing plastic. And I do believe a moderately beautiful view solely for private enjoyment is still better than a extremely stunning landscape shared with many people, not that I’m particularly misanthropic.






Time to go down. A huge brunch was my travel routine, enabling me to get some extra sleep and save time for lunch. So not hungry at 1 pm but thirst did kick in. The path downhill was straightforward enough, and a group of elderly walkers in high spirits crossed path with me. I assumed they started from the car park at the mountain foot — where I planned the water begging… In addition to the pain at my left ankle, the palm of my right foot started to feel funny, kind of a pricking pain. Later it turned out there were three large blisters on the undersurface. This never happened before. My analysis was this was my comeuppance for walking like crazy to basically all places during my five days in London and four days in Dublin in fashionable but uncomfortable shoes and then trying to shift my weight to avoid left ankle pain and walk funnily so far. Yes, so many lessons to learn today, but right now I needed to go on to finish the walk.




The car park was soon within sight and fortunately there seemed to be some activities around a travel trailer — not just empty cars. I was lucky to meet this lovely family with five young children who were all extremely adorable, but it was kind of humiliating when the lady playfully repeated exactly my self-deprecating introduction to her husband busy inside the trailer:
“Darling what’s up?”
“An amateur forgot his water bottle and wants some water.”
“Oh yeah? But we don’t have large bottles.”
“I know. I can only find the small one for the baby.”
“Is that ok?”
“(lady asked me and then said to husband) He said it would be life-saving!”
I was actually glad my stupidity seemed really amusing for the couple, and meanwhile their children seemed pretty interested in this Asian-looking guy in front of them. It took them some time but finally they managed to find a large empty bottle and filled it half full — much more than I expected. Gratitude expressed, and time to head for Tonelagee.




There was a river separating the mountain and the road, but it was no big deal since many big, firm rocks were there for assistance. It might be a different story when water level is high though. A moderate slope of trees and bushes led uphill, but there was no obvious trail anymore, so I needed to occasionally check the map to make sure I stick to the optimal path. Going up along the Tonelagee to Glenmacnass Waterfall route, the area was getting boggy but never too troublesome. However, in rainy days a good pair of boots should be necessary. Lough Ouler was ahead, a beautiful, serene heart-shaped piece of jewel quietly tucked in the mountainside. Going higher up to enjoy a complete view of the lake involved maneuvering between some particularly boggy patches.





Further up the trail became stony and increasingly steep as the summit was near. A couple were walking up behind me but they soon stopped before the steep slope and seemed quite satisfied just to enjoy the view of the lake. The top of Tonelagee, though only the 25-highest in Ireland, appeared majestic and even a bit intimidating against a patch of dark cloud in the background. Huge rocks adorned the steep slope, and some scrambling was necessary for the final summit. Wind picked up but was still ok considering the height.






Finally, at 3 pm, I reached the stone tablet marking the summit. Time to have a long break, eat some energy bars and drink some precious good-will water. The entire Wicklow was basically in sight, and the rolling mountain range snaking around was stunning. Then three young Irish soldiers came up from a slightly different route, but it turned out they also came from Scarr, and this was one of their unofficial exercise. Like other Irish locals I met along the way, they were gentle and nice in an original, unpolished way. Not exactly a fan of photos, I requested to take a picture of us together to mark this encounter at the top of Tonelagee, and Paul, the one slightly older and likely the leader, offered to take it for us. We had a brief chat and they went on toward yet another higher mountain to the northwest, Mullaghcleevaun I believed. It was either fate that drew me to Irish soldiers or they just simply love mountain walking, but days later I would team up with another Irish soldier from Cork, who was back home for only a two-week break before going back to Afghanistan as part of the British army, to summit Carrauntoohil, Ireland’s highest peak. That’s another story though.



Since there was still plenty of time before sunset, I decided to head for Brockagh Mountain to the southeast along a trail marked on my AllTrails map despite the pain on my feet, but it gradually dawned on me the trail was nonexistent at all or submerged in thick bushes and heathers. However, what really scared me after a while was those random holes hidden underneath the thick grass that could be as deep as one meter, possibly the result of water erosion. It would be awkward and potentially dangerous if I got my ankle twisted and stuck in a meadow of heathers. Actually my left foot soon stepped into one of those holes accidentally and I was lucky to have reacted quickly by grasping the grass with both my hands and avoided a terrible fall. That was when I decided to leave this area as soon as possible and head for the Wicklow Gap road. There were still occasional pits here and there, but I managed to reach the road finally by testing every step before landing my foot firmly.



Boy was I glad to be on flat ground, but my body felt otherwise — my brain must have been already used to the fluctuating mountain terrains ‘cause when several cars politely slowed down to make way for me, I fell down in the middle of the road all by myself while crossing! Talk about awkward…

The following walk along R756 was shared with fast cars, but at least the view was still great and I was finally on my way to Laragh for a proper sit-in dinner. I was dying for a pint now that the water was almost finished.



Then I stumbled upon the St Kevin’s Way, a pilgrim path roughly in parallel with the road and leading to the medieval monastery in Glendalough. By now I was pretty much used to the pain, and since this was my last day in Wicklow, I’d just get the most out of it by all means. So some additional distance, but this route was worthy too, with monastic ruins and beautiful woods and valley view along the way.

The last section of the route was from Laragh back to my B&B after some Guinness and Irish stew. By now I already knew this part of Wicklow Way by heart since everyday I would stroll this path at least twice for dinner through woods, heathers and farms. At 9 pm, the sky was still very bright but the moon, playing peekaboo in the clouds, seemed to get bigger every time I turned back.

According to my fitness data, today I walked 27.9 km and climbed 308 floors, in roughly 8 hours. What should be a warm-up turned out to be a painstaking but joyous walk with lots of bad judgements and improvisations. Even my hosts couldn’t believe I did it. However, I was going to suffer for my terrible care of my body in the coming days — I roughly treated those blisters and bandaged them, but a day later, there would be another small blister inside the largest one…

In hindsight, Scarr, Tonelagee and St Kevin’s Way are each a pleasant, rewarding route of easy to moderate difficulty that can be done in two or three hours, especially if one drives to the nearest starting point. I just pieced them all together to ensure maximum enjoyment… and pain. Guess I just wanted to have total control of my body and torture it at will for once before God does.

Well, normally I won’t do that, but it just makes sense when it comes to beautiful mountains, and Irish mountains are gorgeous. Oh, one more thing: please do yourself a favor and grab some songs by The High Kings for the road. They really sing the Irish landscape to life!