It was a gloriously sunny day, and I wanted to be outside. I had read about a cliff walk in the nearby town of Ardmore. There are no two words in the English language more compelling together than “cliff” and “walk,” are there?

We stopped in the town of Lismore first, walked around a bit and had lunch. Then we drove on to Ardmore. It was 3:30 in the afternoon by the time we got there. We drove to the spot that Google Maps identifies as the trailhead. A hotel? We drove into the long, narrow car park, but couldn’t find an available spot. Obviously we were not the only ones wanting to get outside on this beautiful day. We wiggled our way back out and snagged a spot on the street where a car was just pulling out. Score!

We were walking back toward the hotel when I spotted a sign pointing up the hill that read “Cliff Walk.” How fortuitous! We trudged up the hill.

As is typical, we’ve found, there were no further signs. We saw a local woman walking her dog and asked if we were on the path to the cliff walk. She looked at us, confused for a second, then said, Yes, they’ve plowed up a field, but you can take the next street.

Kinda vague: Field? Street? Maybe it will be obvious when we get there. We walked on.

We spotted several plowed fields, multiple streets, and a castle-looking building that appeared to be at world’s end. Perhaps it’s on a cliff! We tried to get to it, but every street led to a plowed field that blocked our path. “If the next street doesn’t lead to a cliff walk,” I told Marcus, “we’re giving up.” Twenty minutes later we were returning to the car.

As we came back down the hill, I had a thought. “I’m just going over to the hotel for a minute.” I had seen something at the end of the car park that I want to check out. There was a path marked “St. Declan’s Hermitage.” No mention of a cliff walk, but maybe… I started down the path, and, sure enough, it led beyond the hermitage to some cliffs overlooking the Celtic Sea.

I ran back to get Marcus. It was 4:30 by this time. We had no idea how long the path was. Should we just call it a day? Of course not! Have I taught you nothing? [Backtracking in the Wicklow Mountains]

I would like to say that, confident in our decision, we walked with abandon, but that’s not us. At every bend in the path we stopped to reassess: What time is it? Should we turn back now? Is it getting dark? (We have an obsession with time, and a tendency toward overthinking.)

Fortunately, every bend revealed something intriguing that propelled us to the next one until we had completed the entire walk. It took us 35 minutes to walk out, but only 15 to return. And we still had hours of daylight ahead of us.