In june, me and my brother took off from our doorstep (Londonderry) and set off for Cork, travelling along the west coast, staying at various youth hostels along the way.

We made a few problems in the planning though, from my weekend rides with the local club, I got it into my head that 60miles per day would be totally within our limits and my brother misread the map scale making each day twice as long as it should have been! Needless to say the first day I totally died and almost turned home . We had to ride the bus from Letterkenny to Donegal after completing 62miles, into a headwind. That night whilst we sat in the pub, we calculated a more tame pace and route to get us to Cork within the fortnight.

Lack of training on my part really slowed things down, but i noticed a huge improvement in endurance over the course of the fortnight, but due to excessive cider, and food, never lost much weight Also having a dodgy breakfast in Bundoran gave me food poisining for about 2-3days, so i just stayed in a youth hostel and threw up for a few days.

Word of warning to anyone doing a similar tour, if you plan on taking your bikes onto a bus, no matter where your going, its a flat rate of around 15euro which is usually more than it cost for an adult fare. We got the plane home from Cork to Belfast, which was cheap, but yet again were ***** on the price of bike carriage.

It was an excellent trip, the weather really was on our side, only getting rained on as we entered Galway, and a day or so after that.

Ok onto the pics, first set are of the boat from Magilligan to Greencastle, some of the beaches around Bundoran (great surfing spot) and a few from Aran island (really worth the visit)