TLDR – Thursday Adventure Day, the Devils Glen Waterfall on the Seamus Heaney Walk
Hiking day
Left the house a bit after 0900 and headed into the Wicklow mountains to hike the Seamus Heaney trail to the Devil’s Glen waterfall. From here forward to be called the Devil’s Anus waterfall; Michelle did not approve. Apple Maps took us straight to the car park for the trail. We parked at the first car park for a few minutes before working out. We could drive further into the woods down a proper single-lane road to a car park at the actual trailhead.
At the start of the trail, Maddex and I found a large walking stick. We eventually snapped the staff in half to create a walking staff for each of us. They lasted about 20 minutes before our arms hurt, and we set them on the side of the trail for someone else to enjoy. Before dropping them, we might have had random battles with our staffs.
A few kilometers along the well-marked, well-maintained path, we came to a calm pond in the river fed by a small waterfall. Sadly, the rocks were far too wet to use to cross the river. Oddly, next to the pool, someone left a pair of shoes and a towel. I hope the story here is one of forgetting shoes and a towel rather than something else. We’ll never know, we’ll always wonder……
The pool is fed by a small waterfall, with the larger Devil’s Anus waterfall visible in the distance from the right angle. A short walk past the pool, the trail ended in the rocks – not getting closer from here with the super slick rocks between the waterfall and us. We did stop for a view and water break. As we were leaving, we actually ran into two other people on the trail, the First people we’d seen on today’s hike.
On the walk back, we took a different route along the river vs going back up the hill to the car park the way we came. About an hour into the walk, I was starting to worry the trail would not connect back to where we started, and we’d need to backtrack. Pulled out the phone and looked, and it looked like the trail does loop back around to the car park; good. I was impressed with the trial. It’s clean, well-packed, wide, and well-maintained. Throughout the entire trial, there are little signs with random quotes. Higher up from the river on the cliff path there were a few window frame shapes hung from trees to take entertaining pictures.
Back at the car, we cleaned our feet before driving home. At the bottom of the mountain in the tiny town, we parked at a Circle K, buying the kid’s Slushies. Gotta spoilt the kids –
