Report on Setanta's Christmas Walk 2011

Here's a report on our recent christmas walk which was submitted by Bobby Buckley. Some photos here.

The Annual Setanta Christmas Walk 28th December 2011 Woodenbridge, County Wicklow.

The public car park in Woodenbridge filled up at 10 A.M. with a motley crew of old hill walkers, grizzled Orienteers, retired very grizzled orienteer’s, and some not so grizzled walkers who were in the know. As with all Setanta Christmas walks it is an ambulatory gift from the club’s hill walking cognoscenti to those who are capable of appreciating such a fine gift. Last year we were all introduced to 19thc. Graveyards , Victorian infrastructure,landlord’s secret demesnes ,all in the familiar landscape of the Wicklow-Dublin border. That landscape was irrevocably changed for everyone lucky to be on that walk. Who can forget the sense of awe at the end of that walk to look up at the normally unseen but massive granite bridge spanning the River Glencullen, built by the Wingfields on the edge of Enniskerry?

The 2011 walk was moved, in a total change of scene, to the border of Wexford and Wicklow. The minibus filled quickly, with Mick Mangan, a late retiree, collecting the necessary 5 euro. Dave Weston, the designer of the walk, cast a proprietorial eye down the aisle, nodded and finally we were off. I was beside mapping Guru Brian Power and as the bus passed various signs for Aughrim and Tinahely , Brian began to reconstruct the probable walk in his mind. The longer the bus travelled from Woodenbridge, the end of the walk, the longer the walk .So the bus continued to speed pass junctions ,with strange names like Coolboy and Coolafancy and a murmur of both dread and anticipation began to build in the bus. Many like, myself were probably regretting that extra drink, that irresistible mince pie as each mile passed.

Yet one had to count ones blessings. To the North the sun was shining on the main Wicklow massif and the wind was blowing directly west, a great advantage driving us on what seemed the long away home. Brian, casting his eye around the landscape and searching through his maps predicted that the 2000 foot mountain of Croghan would surely feature in the walk. The bus stopped at a forest turn-a-round, where I do not know, but guessing somewhere on the forested east slopes of Conna hill, a lower promontory on the smooth Annagh Hill which dramatically ends almost on a sheer incline. On these walks I retire my inner control freak and allow each scene to appear to me as a surprise. For the older walker the pleasure is often, excepting people like Paddy O’Brien and Brendan Doherty, not in the sheer physicality and challenge of the walk but in the conversation with rotating walkers, the richness and surprised strangeness of each view, and the rebellious joy of just being out in nature. All walkers, about 30 in number, are all lined up at the forest barrier by Philip Brennan and photographed for posterity. I trust the picture is accompanying this account.

Then the walk begins. Once I rejoiced in that initial burst of energy but now I take a philosophical approach or maybe metaphorical would be a more apt term. I am an old steam engine, very slow to start, my lungs burning like dried dust in the moist air. Bellowing along I slip into the stream of some two unaware innocents, supported by their synchronised strides and throw away conversation. If some one I know, comes past, I still keep my vow of silence, determined to save energy only for my striding boots and my laboured breathing. I know that when the walk comes to gather at the end that I will be there, focussed, talking and striding easily. The steam engine will now be at full throttle and racing on unstoppable.

When we break out into the open the colourful capped band stretches ahead. Now there is the opportunity to look south into Wexford with its ever descending wooded hills Craanhill, Kilmichaelhill, and Laffan hill standing like green stacks in a blue haze. One young fair-haired walker that I never saw before pulls in to the side of the track and pulling his anorak over him like a sail he lights and sucks at a cigarette. The power of addiction. The smell of the nicotine wafts and pollutes the prevailing air of the trooping band ahead. Then the walk becomes serious. There is a sudden change of direction and I see a purple figure in the distance leap to the left beside a great grey built wall which points directly straight up the hill. Now the entire file suddenly seems compacted and convulsed into activity, the young and fit clear the great but precipitous wall and generously waits to help the rest. A Young man in a yellow rugby shirt helped me to slip under the barbed wire at the other side of the wall and I am away up the grassy hill to Annagh Hill. Suddenly I am toward the front of the group, but since I am moving at only chugging speed I spend my time stopping, looking at the view south , and greeting each passing pair.

The hill levels out and the walkers now spend much of their energy practising balletic exercises clearing rusty barbed wire fences. At last a short pause, for a quick break on the summit of Annagh Hill, before us stretches the full realty of the walk, an almost foolish precipitous descent to Annagh gap , I say foolish, because after gaining such a height it seems a waste to lose it again, then the forested looming shoulder of Croghan and then beyond it the bald top , now happily clear of cloud and behind it the hidden unknown long descent to Woodenbridge .

It is now after these physical introductions that walks take on their own character for each person. Each has been sifted and each by dint of ability or who they came with, face the final challenge of climbing the highest point. At Ballythomashill we break for lunch.

It is a strange scene for this dull dark wood. 30 people in multicoloured hats relax and dine on tree stumps, all looking like dwarves on a day out. A sound like rumbling is heard and six knight like figures ride by slowly on snorting quads, waving with gloves aloft. We watch them disappear, many thinking black thoughts about “their ”fellow users of the woods. Then a moment of grace, each walker is furnished with a plastic beaker and as in a scene from the bible a bottle of rose champagne is uncorked by Marcus and quickly brimmed out into each and every beaker. Let it be known that a bottle of champagne was walked over all that terrain by one person for a mouthful of pleasure for the many. The kindness of strangers.

Now tired and resigned we face our fate, pull on our bags and walk up the woods of Carraig and then out into the open of the mountain. I had just recovered from a fall going up hill and was toward the rear. I caught up with Philip who was talking Richard Flynn through a bad patch. Richard was my chauffeur so in a selfish gesture I decided to stay with him or near him, as there is nothing worse than unnecessary bonhomie when you are bunched. Philip and I walked slightly ahead, keeping an eye behind, chatting about Philip’s recent mountaineering trip to the recesses of Siberia. In fact this bald mountain on the border of Wexford and Wicklow looked like a great Mongolian steppe. The outcrops of the summit stood like teeth in the grassy tussocks.

Suddenly the wind seemed to pick up and we were blown up to the top, the trig point further out on the crest, almost hidden. Philip photographed me hanging on to the trig point. Richard was blown up in a few moments and in a poignant gesture of heroism or futility he insisted on touching the trig point. The spirit of Captain Scott still lives on in 2011.

Then the sudden calm as we descend, the walkers filing away in the distance, the town of Arklow in white below and the Irish Sea shimmering beyond. Westy (Dave Weston) waits for us to catch up and now that we are on the way down Richard gathers morale and we begin to catch up with the main group. All are united at a country lane at the exit to Ballinvalley wood. It is now 4.p.m. We have walked, I am reliably told by Brendan O Connor, 21 KMs.

Dark is only a half an hour away and unknown to us, our greatest challenge lies ahead. We walk for another half an hour along these country lanes ,then climb a gate into a field and in what I think is Clan William (William’s Field) all the walkers are now gathered in one great final group ,to prepare for the steep descent 300M,through a wood, to the River Ballykillageer. Some of the well prepared are already fitting on their head torches. We slowly file into the dark wood. Brian Power and the Boy in the Yellow sports shirt helpfully hold down the barbed wire fence for every one to enter the wood. I see Peter Kernan solely clear the fence further up. Geoffrey Willis graciously hands me one of his climbing poles. It is only after I realise it was his only one. Thanks Geoffrey. Identity disappears in the dark but I think Hennie and Gordon are nearby. Shapes and lights snake their way down beneath me. Ahead, lights flash to and fro demarking the way ahead. It seems in the dim light that a line of trees had been removed fortuitously all the way down. This was confirmed as I found tree stumps with my boots, a kind of steeping stones in a downward river of clinging mud. Other times trailing ash branches from cut trees provided a kind of natural banisters down hill and then as the hill steepened there was nothing for it but to drop on one’s behind and slide to the next horizontally laid barriers of piled branches, hoping that no serious harm was done other than the indignity of a muddy bum.

Halfway down the slope the river could be seen and heard and in a pale sliver of moon ,what looked like a gravel road beside it. This descent became a trust of faith in nature and ones instincts and having slid, grabbed and tottered all the dark group were finally on the path in one great huddle and assured that all were there, we trudged through the dark woods ,climbing a gate then into another valley joining from the south ,a house light above on the hill and then onto a road , an odd car coming against us . I was with Brian Power, Richard Flynn and Dave Weston as the lights of Woodenbridge were there, at last. We removed all the sweaty and dirty gear at the opened boots of cars .Some left for home immediately while the majority walked into the Hotel, had a pint, a burger and mash amidst all the satisfaction and conviviality of a completed walk. Another Great Setanta walk was achieved. I over heard that we had walked 26.8 kilometres in all.

Yesterday at the age of 66 I walked 26.8 kilometres. Today just one day older I cannot go down the stairs. But roll on next year’s walk. Thanks to Dave and everyone who organised and participated in the walk.