antokelly

well i hope Mike finds something nice to say about Ireland before he moves on,doesnt rain in ireland it drizzles if you want rain head to northern spain now that's rain.
anyway report is good so far great photos seems to be covering good miles eating plenty thats for sure .

Sharpshin

Absolutely

In Irish hotels you meet the most interesting people while on the internet.

for example, this is the view from the corner of the hotel lobby in Maghera....



...where you had to sit in order to get any wifi reception at all.

Sitting there you did get to meet everyone staying in the hotel, which was on a Friday night was filled with a "hen party" (??), apparently an Irish custom where a whole charter bus load of middle-aged women from Belfast wearing clothes one-size too small all get loudly drunk and exchange bawdy jokes and raucous laughter on the occasion of the looming marriage of somebody's daughter.

(and 'tis a good thing English became my second language while in Ulster, else I might have understood what they were saying and blushed right proper)

Speculative glances were cast my way and indeed romance or something like that might have been in the air except for timidity on my part.

See, back in Glasgow I had talked to a guy that said Glasgow didn't scare him because, after all, he was from Belfast. These formidable matrons were also from Belfast, what if I had inadvertently said something that set 'em off?

The next night in a hotel in Irvinestown, no wifi in the rooms, you had to go down to the lobby, which on a Saturday night attracted crowds of locals who stayed at the hotel to drink, socialize, and hear a favored local band play. Um, I guess all that traditional music can get tiresome sometimes, on account of this band specialized in American hits from the '70's and '80's.

All in all it was a musical version of if'n I had ordered the Southern Fried Chicken instead of the Scallops at that charming little restaurant back in Scotland....



Some days later in a bed and breakfast south of Newcastle West, one had to sit outside in the driveway under the eaves of the big house to access the wifi, while sheltering from the rai... er.... 'drizzle' on a long Irish summer evening. Did I mention I have two degrees in Entomology? Its cool, I can actually identify biting flies.

Really, the only wifi disappointment was the last night in Ireland, in a hotel in Cobh. There you could actually get wifi reception in your room, or more accurately from one corner of your room, sort of, but of course didn't get to meet anyone or ID any bugs while doing so.

OTOH, at the campground in Doolin, I could pick up wifi in my tent



...which really rocked when sheltering from all that heavy, driving drizzle.

Really, its all in how one chooses to look at things; is the glass half-empty, or does the head on yer Guinness count too?

Mike

...and a serious question: When people from Ulster talk into their iphones to dictate texts and such, does the phone generate coherent words and sentences?

Sharpshin

Day 11: Maghera to Irvinestown. 55 miles, 485 miles total.

As of that morning Wildcamping-5 nights, Campgrounds-1 night, Youth Hostels-1 night, Hotels-3 nights. 10-nights total.

I stayed in the hotel at Maghera until nearly noontime, waiting for the rain to quit. The staff were friendly and gracious as I sat at a couch and table in the wifi corner, and brought me my included-with-the-room breakfast buffet there. I should also add that they had let me park my bike under the stairs inside the lobby overnight. Finally, rain or no rain, it was time to hit the road.



On the map I was making close to a beeline from Ballycastle in the far Northeast, to Doolin and the Cliffs of Moher, half-way down on the West Coast. I will say the National Bicycle Network or whatever served me quite well on this Maghera to Irvinestown leg (actually I was headed for Eniskillen).

Just three miles outside of Maghera, Tobermore Presbyterian Church, definitely not Catholic. Most folks are aware of the Boston Irish actively supporting and sending money to the IRA during the Troubles. Not many people are aware that the Reverend Ian Paisely, prominent Ulster Protestant leader, also traveled to speak and raise funds in the United States, in this case in churches in the American South. There he would preach on the insidious dangers of Papism, drawing a sympathetic ear.



Switch out that Union Jack for the Stars and Stripes, perhaps change the denomination to Baptist, and Tullamore Presbyterian Church would fit right in most anywhere in the South, Scots-Irish and Scots-Irish, the cultures in many respects are that close.

I must add that I have no idea of the actual views of the Tobermore Presbyterian Pastors or their congregation, its just that the familiarity of the building jumped out at me. Might have been the Star of David that did it. As for the Reverend Paisely, a Belfast Protestant gentleman I spoke to in Glasgow may have said it best; "Paisely" he said, "was always ready to pour petrol onto the fire."

Note the disposition of the flag in that photo, for most of Day 11 I was riding directly into that wind, this was Saturday and that was the front that had cancelled the ferry journey I had originally booked for Saturday.

Further down the road, the Saturday afternoon cattle auction at Draperstown.






After Draperstown, my route took me directly over a broad upland region called the Sperrin Mountains. Much of the time I was riding directly into spells of heavy rain, so much so my iphone screen inside its waterproof case quit working, or more accurately would not register the swipes of my sodden fingers. Five hours to make the 35 miles to Omagh, I texted family and friends that evening that this was the toughest day of riding yet, and as it would turn out, ranked right up there with the 40 miles over Kirkstone Pass and up Hartside Fell on Day 2 of this trip as the two hardest days of this tour.







The wind was so bad that when I came across a sign pointing the way at an intersection to an ancient Ogham stone just a half mile down a downwind turn, I passed on the opportunity, I didn't want to face the ride back. At length I came to the opposite, mostly downhill side of the Sperrins, and the final five miles to Omagh were easy.





Omagh, that would be King Billy (William of Orange) on that sign you drive under, I believe that when in Ulster it helps to know the nature of the neighborhood.



By then the wind had moderated and shifted to the north, and the road to Irvinestown was smoothly surfaced with a substantial shoulder for much of its length. Liberated from the wind at last, I made the last eighteen miles in about an hour and twenty minutes.

Losing the light by then, and having seen nowhere close I'd consider wild camping, I checked in at a local hotel, packed as mentioned earlier because of a popular music act performing that evening. They were fully booked, but fortunately someone cancelled at the last minute, and I got a cut-rate deal on the room.

Mike

Sharpshin

Day 12. Irvineston to Carrick-upon-Shannon. 55 miles, 540 miles total.

As of that morning Wildcamping-5 nights, Campgrounds-1 night, Youth Hostels-1 night, Hotels-4 nights. 11-nights total.

I had been up late into the night over Guinness at the hotel bar, mostly in long conversation with a young couple, both late twenties. His recently passed grandfather had been in a Protestant militia, and he recounted the panic they felt when they found a box of British .303 ammuntion in his attic. It seems that by local law such was considered terrorism supplies or some such (heck, hope they don't look in my house in San Antonio, I have the ammo, AND an Irish Enfield). She was a member of a police force somewhere in Ulster, and recalled how some of her nominally Catholic family and friends has called her a sellout when she joined the Police.

This was July 2nd or thereabouts, as best I recall the big Boyne celebrations and marches happened the following week, and much was made in the papers about Protestant leaders negotiating with Catholic leaders in Belfast about where the big Orange Order parades would be routed, which to my untutored mind sounded like a huge amount of progress.

Note was made of one renegade Protestant piper youth group in a recent year which had veered from the agreement and paused to march in circles in front of a Catholic Cathedral playing a cheerful ditty called "The Famine Song" (sorry, I see the humor in it)

It seemed everyone in Ireland breathed a huge sigh of relief when marching season passed without major incident. The only property destruction stemmed from the fires; tall bonfires of crates and other scrap lumber being ignited in celebration of the Boyne right inside Belfast. Given some of the improbable locations in Protestant neighborhoods where these things were built, its a wonder that only a couple of adjacent houses caught fire.

Anyways... another late start after working the breakfast buffet for all I could.

Hardly paused at all to take a picture of Eniskillen, which is a shame, as it was an interesting touristy-type town at the top end of Loch Erne, worth a visit in its own right.



See, I was getting close to the Republic, FINALLY I would be setting foot in Ireland, Ireland, home of my grandparents, place of my ancestry. I had my passport accessible, and a copy of my flight itinerary in case I was asked.

When I DID arrive at the border just outside of Swanlinbar, I wasn't sure if this as the Republic yet or not....



No checkpoint, no customs, not even a "Welcome to the Republic of Ireland" sign. Maybe the European Union did more to bring peace to Ulster than anything else. This was an EU border, which means hardly any border at all, and free passage for the Citizens of those places. From what I gather the residents of both sides of this particular border kinda liked this free passage deal.

Ulster voted to stay in the EU during the Brexit vote, and now that they are out of it by virtue of being part of the UK, the issue of what should be done with the Border again is going to be a difficult one.

Anyways I rode into Swalinbar, it was all closed, this being Sunday, except for a sort of convenience store.



I actually asked the proprietors, a young couple, if this was really the Republic of Ireland. Indeed it was, they cheerfully replied, so I changed my money yet again. Before this bicycle trip, my son and I went to see the Isle of Man TT motorcycle races. So in the space of a month I had dealt with Manx pounds, English pounds, Scottish Pounds, if I'm recalling right Ulster has their own pounds, and now I was in the realm of the Euro.

Whatever the currency, the smallest bill is a fiver; five pounds or five euros. Seven to nine dollars in our currency. The result is you end up carrying a lot of coins. I actually carried a coin purse to hold the usual pile.



One thing that soon became apparent in the Republic is that all the Irish traditions that are somewhat trivialized or stereotyped in the US are the real deal in Ireland. Traditional Irish music fer example ain't an affectation or something confined to folk festivals, but is a vibrant and continuing thing. Dance, the same way. And athletics... seemed like Gaelic Athletic Association grounds were all over....



Can't say I took that many photos on Day 12. I don't recall the route between Enskillen and Carrick-on-Shannon as being especially scenic. What I did get was the same thing that happened in the Scottish Lowlands - Upstate New York flashbacks. Glaciated terrain, low rolling hills and hollows, drumlins and eskers.

Later in the day though, not far from Carrick, while looking for a spot to wild camp I came across something that seemed quintessentially Irish.... peat cutting.





A puzzle as no bog was in sight, but it was adjacent to a low brushy area, perhaps the bog had filled in over the centuries and become woodlands. I dunno if they burned those bricks as-is, or if they shipped 'em off to be compressed into something like this, as sold in front of convenience stores



Toward evening I stopped in at a pub outside of Carrick, the European Cup football tournament was on, and I had started to follow it. After that, a quick request to the kindly landlady and I was pitching my tent for the night behind the pub out by the canal.



Mike

bradtx

Mike, I have a collection of WWII Enfields. If you want some info about yours, send me a PM with the serial number (X out the last two or three digits if you wish to.) Year of manufacture is on the butt socket and there were a few different manufacturers.

That there is no official border crossing seems like a good sign.

Brad

Sharpshin

Well hey, great minds and all that

During my Enfield period I think I had as many as five WWII Enflields, including an Australian No.1, and No.4's by at least two English manufacturers ,a Canadian one and an American (Savage?) contract example. Turns out I'm not a collector by temperament and I narrowed it down to just one; a 1943 BSA that shot very well.

I'm still kicking myself, when those "Irish contract" 1950's Enfields came out still packed in the original cosmoline I traded off that excellent BSA to get one. So, I have a brand new Enfield, virtually unfired, sitting in my safe. I'm holding it in trust for my nephew, currently serving in the military.

I used to own one of those Enfield .380 British "tanker" revolvers also, dated 1941. When I took it apart to clean it upon purchase, there was accumulated sand behind the grips .

I recent years I've gone hopelessly flintlock, if it doesn't go off with a spark from a rock, I ain't much interested

Mike

bradtx

Mike, I've cut back my L-E collection also to just the one's that aren't too rare to shoot...well there's a couple that almost fit that description. I also have one of the revolvers and some day I'll actually hit a bullseye at 20 yds. with it. What a heavy trigger! I remember a day at the skeet range when a man appeared with a double barrel flintlock shot gun. He did hit a few, but what a smoky spectacle!

Enough of this refreshing side topic, how are your new tires doing?

Brad

djb

all the mentions of the religious tensions here really makes me think of a stand up line from Jimmie JJ Walker from back in the 70s or 80s, I wish I could remember it properly, but it was a good dig at humans in general about how often the whole racism/us/them thing is all over the world.
Bloody religion.

Sharpshin

Those 700x35 Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tours? Very good tires; low rolling resistance, quiet, grip like velcro in the dirt, and, all else equal, a 35mm gives a noticeably softer ride than a 32. These will be my go-to tires from here on in.

I got the fender thing figured out too, once I tweaked the front fender a bit there have been no more clearance issues. So, if you're running 700 wheels on an '80's Voyageur, the slightly smaller diameter gives the room to run a 35mm tire, at least if its a Schwalbe.


Day 13. Carrick-upon-Shannon to Abbeyknockmoy. 50 miles, 590 miles total.

As of that morning Wildcamping-6 nights, Campgrounds-1 night, Youth Hostels-1 night, Hotels-4 nights. 12-nights total.

A familiar dilemma in Midsummer British Isles; morning daylight arrived hours before breakfast goes on sale. Earliest place I found in Carrick was like 7am, and that was a convenience store. I had my first flat of the trip in Carrick that morning, thought nothing of it at the time. I didn't mention it, but on Day 9 of the trip back in Scotland the front tire developed a sideways kink or deformation.

Crossing the Shannon, this is towards the top end of that river before it takes its wide arc through Ireland to the sea below Limerick. Not bad that an island the size of Ireland can host a 200+ mile long river.



OTOH, maybe not surprising given the climate......

Ireland is full of ruined churches. IIRC the Elizabethan Anglicans arrived in the 1500's and started knocking down Catholic Churches, then Cromwell's armies arrived in the 1600's and knocked down Anglican and Catholic churches both.

This is part of the remnants of Saint Mary the Virgin Cathedral in the village of Elphin.





A beauty shop window in that same town.





Further down the road, the ruins of the Elizabethan Priory near Tulsk.



Right across the road from a museum celebrating the numerous ancient and near-ancient mounds and archeological sites in the area.

Sharpshin

I was somewhat surprised to see this guy was Iron Age (500BC?). This Irish guy with the basically same weaponry shows up in the Roman Era, the Dark Ages through the Middle Ages, and some would have it all the way through to Culloden in 1745.



In fact, it has been claimed that Picket's Charge at Gettysburg was the last great Celtic charge. A bit of a stretch I think, the Confederates marched in good order across that field in what was far from the last such assault by either side, and point of fact hardly any one in the Civil War on either side was ever cut or stabbed by sharpened steel of any description.

A gentleman on the staff at the museum had it that the Irish preferred blades over firearms, so as to shed the blood of their opponents with their own hand. Indeed, the very first Irishman known to have been shot happened adjacent to the present museum site.

Moving on, more scenes from Upstate New Y.... er Ireland.....





Towards the end of the day, eight miles from Abbeyknockmoy a second flat, in back. This time a careful examination yielded a tiny sliver of retread wire, projecting inside the tire maybe 1mm.

On my way again I stopped in at a local pub, and obtained permission to set up a tent nearby from a local.

Mike

djb

That Irish guy is looking remarkably well for his age
(I know I know, I'll keep the day job)

From an anthropology view, with your very good choice of details in your photos, it is very interesting to see all of the obvious life long reminders that form/commemorate/continue the divisions. (Banner over road, 1916 event meeting, wall graffiti, the parades)

Makes me think of those blood letting rituals in Iraq etc

Should mention, am just putting out observations, an enjoying the read/journey.
Cheers

bradtx

djb, Quite true, the devil is in the details...

Mike, I wonder if the locals are aware of just how important these 'ancient' sites really are? For a full laundry list of reasons and perhaps lessons.

Brad

Sharpshin

Mike's Irish-American-raised-in-England viewpoint, given as briefly as possible on a forum and a thread that are NOT political....

At the heart of it, in the 20th Century at least, was the understandable Protestant desire of not wanting to become a political minority in a greater Ireland. Plus there was a religious element; the Catholic church long influenced the Republic of Ireland's politics to a degree that would be intolerable in the USA, let alone Ulster.

Then too there were the financial motives, in an age when Ulster was a dynamic manufacturing and ship-building center amid a poorer Ireland, and essential to Britain.. But that wasn't in in my lifetime, and I'm 59.

I recall St Patrick's Day parades in New York City where clueless Americans would fly "England get out of Ireland" signs. My impression, having grown up where and when I did, was that England would LOVE to get out of Ireland. To my neighbors, average Working Class Brits, Ulster was a foreign country; economically depressed, incomprehensible and torn by hopeless violence.

Fast forward to the present: In a highly significant vote, the Republic just recently legalized Gay marriage by a wide margin in a public referendum DESPITE the opposition of the Catholic church. You can no longer build a case that the Republic of Ireland is a Catholic theocracy. Ironically, IIRC Gay marriages are not yet recognized in Ulster, Ulster collectively aligning with the Catholic church on this one issue.

Most foot soldiers on both sides in Ulster fomenting the terror, the guys actually doing the shooting and blowing stuff up, came from the poorest, most hopeless neighborhoods. In these same neighborhoods the militant organizations on both sides were heavily involved in organized crime and brutally suppressed dissent even within their own communities.

Today, just like over in England where I grew up, it seemed everyone is far more mobile and cosmopolitan, both mentally and physically. Give the amount of time we all spend on the internet much of the credit for that. Plus even in Ireland, Polish and Romanian young folks working hotels and retail were all over, cities and rural areas both. I didn't make it to Belfast, but I expect that Polish has probably surpassed Mandarin (Chinese) as the third most common language after English and Irish. Immigration changes things.

My belief is that a great many of the younger generation in Ireland and Ulster don't see themselves as defined by the Troubles or by Nationalism. In this recent Brexit vote, the younger generation all over the UK were voting Remain. The same was true in Ulster. Indeed, the majority in Ulster and the Republic were united on this momentous political and economic issue. I didn't meet anyone there, in Ulster or the Republic, that was wanting a return to the old days of Border checkpoints.

All that being said.... I was in a conversation in a pub in the Republic, where guys my age were speaking bitterly about Maggie Thatcher and her hard-line policies that thirty five years ago resulted in the deaths in prison of the likes of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. I didn't say anything, it plainly wasn't my country to have an opinion about.

To the best of my knowledge the Irish are very much aware of their own history, good and bad. Heck they seemed to treasure their history as part of their identity as Irish.

...and a testament to long Irish memories. After Ireland won independence in 1921, the first incarnation of a free and self-governing Ireland was the Irish Free State, which preceded the present Republic until 1937. Not widely known outside of Ireland, but during that time the forces of the Irish Free State were engaged in combat with the members of the IRA for who protectorate or whatever status within the British Empire was still not full independence. Irishmen killed Irishmen over this issue.

This marker lies by the side of the road somewhere north of Castleisland on the N21.



At first I thought it marked the site of a traffic fatality, modest roadside markers to that effect put up by relatives being common on Irish roadways.

Turns out though the marker was erected in memory of a deceased IRA member, killed at that spot in 1923 by forces of the Irish Free State.

The inscription states that the monument was put in place by the living relatives of the deceased, and by members of the modern IRA...

.... that was in 2007, EIGHTY-FOUR YEARS after the fact.

JMHO,
Mike

DropBarFan

Interesting thread, many tour threads are simply pretty pics ignoring culture/history etc. Didn't know wild camping was permitted, how does one clean up w/o showers? Food pics are amazing, I reckon one could actually gain weight while bike touring over there. How are the motorists on those narrow roads? Ironic that UK/Ireland noted for rainy weather but they generally get less avg annual rain than east coast US cities. Heavy showers are not generally pleasant for cycling but light rain can sometimes be enjoyable.

In re cultural similarities: DC area sort of a hotbed of Scots/Irish etc culture. Irish pubs w/trad bands, Highland Games etc. Bluegrass music is popular--even NASCAR is considered to have roots in Scots/Irish culture since it started with Appalachian moonshiners racing their cars.

Sharpshin

Just a brief addendum re: Ulster history.

For a long time Catholics in Ulster, then a minority in the population, were subject to overt discrimination and violence, these grievances playing a major role in the unrest of the '60's and '70's. Since then, while both Catholics and Protestants have been subject to the decline in birth rates common to the collective West, Ulster-born Catholics are still increasing at a faster rate than the Protestants and will soon constitute a slight majority in Ulster, if they don't already.

However, much of the root of the old unrest in the form systematic discrimination against and threats against Catholics has since been addressed by the legal system of the UK and, as previously mentioned, church attendance across the board has been falling off. There might come a time when lines are drawn with respect to how one feels about the prospect of Union with the Republic, I would imagine a great many nominally Catholic folk born in Ulster might want to remain British, siding with nominally Protestant folk and further blurring the sectional lines.

JMHO,

Mike

Now, back to bike riding......

djb

amen to that (sic).
I'm just glad that I was born where and when I was and the society where I live doesn't have these sort of issues, certainly not with any of the extent of violence that has happened here.

bradtx

Mike, One of the unique aspects of bicycle touring is that it's a somewhat vulnerable activity. Being not isolated in an auto, or graced with the speed of a motorcycle one can be immersed in an area's local culture, weather, smells, and lore. Better fodder for lively discussion than being dropped off by a bus at yet another 'touristy' location.

Brad

kellichou

Thanks, Mike, for your perspective. I appreciate it--your lived experience, your knowledge of history, and your amazing travelogue!

As an avid reader of Joyce, especially Ulysses (and I am forever indebted to the Gifford Annotated Guide for helping me with all the 1904 Dublin allusions, and for all the Irish history and nationalism), it's always interesting to read about Ireland and Irish history.

Jetto245

Nice pictures! Brought out the glory of the English countryside!

Started touring recently and I'm hooked and want too organise a trip in the U.K. When I arrive back at home

Keep it up

Sharpshin

Agreed, but in this case I felt like I wasn't really a stranger, and discovered I was never really very far away.

Anyways......

Day 14: Abbeyknockmoy to Doolin. 57 miles, 647 miles total

As of that morning Wildcamping-7 nights, Campgrounds-1 night, Youth Hostels-1 night, Hotels-4 nights. 13-nights total.

Another early morning (but no pics ) at Abbeyknockmoy. There was a convenience store that opened early, where I was able to do greasy food, strong tea and a newspaper thing.

Then I was off, first due south to Athenry. I think it was along this stretch I passed this sign.



I gotta say that the concept of a national ploughing championship sounds about like watching paint dry, but turns out they do have such a thing.


Athenry (Baile Atha an Ri) was a surprise, it was a walled Medieval City in its day, of which walls a remarkable amount remains.







Founded in 1295 by one Meiler de Burmingham, late of England. I didn't know the Normans got that far west, I thought this was far beyond the Pale. Of course that early maybe it weren't so much a conquest so much as an insertion between incessantly warring Irish clans with associated aliances and intrigues. Ireland was notorious for corrupting Englishmen and others sent there, a thing which the traditional freedoms permitted Irish women in Celtic society is said to have played a role. Whatever the cause, invaders regularly "went native" prob'ly right up until the Elizabethans started trucking in Lowland Scots in order to have a reliable pool of soldiers.

After Athenry, south and west in the direction of Kinvarra. It was somewhere along the way I had my second flat of the day, the third in two days. It turns out the inside of the tire was disintegrating around the original puncture.

I haven't mentioned that the front tire went south too, back in Scotland 'tween Inveraray and Campbeltown for no reason I could discern the front tire had developeda sideways kink and bump in the tread. These were 700x32 Continental Top Contact II's bought new for this trip. Some folks swear by 'em, I must have got a bad batch. The regular quiet "swunk...swunk...swunk.." of the bent tire against the front fender I had just been tolerating for the past six days, not irritating enough to ditch the tire. Now it was.

I tossed the kinked front one into a nearby dumpster, patched the rear with a 5 euro note and put it on the front. On the back I unpacked my still-folded 700x32 Gatorskin, packed along unused since my 2014 tour. Always bring a spare.

This wasn't my first view of the coast, but its a good one. I know that very-loosely-based-on-fact movie Braveheart was filmed in Ireland. This ruin sure looked like the castle that Mel rode his horse out of that night from the third floor...



The N67 I found myself on was crowded, and Kinvarra was packed with traffic.



Worst drivers I encountered in Ireland, who elsewhere were mostly patient. This was getting late in the day, and they looked and drove like upscale people from the cities impatient to get to their hotels or country places. After three flats I was down to just two spare tubes. Not critical but I was wanting two more, and a tire if they had it.

Turns out the bike shop in Kinvarra had closed down, nothing to do anyway but take my life in my hands and ride on towards Ballyvaughan. Some nice views though, pretty sure this was on the way....

Sharpshin

The Burren, a whole region of a sort of exposed corrugated limestone, a place like nowhere else on earth .....



...a country where there is not enough water to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him...... and yet their cattle are very fat; for the grass growing in turfs of earth, of two or three foot square, that lie between the rocks, which are of limestone, is very sweet and nourishing." (Edmund Ludlow, 1652. Cromwell's man in Ireland and certainly a man with much blood on his hands)

Along the way, a Border Collie, intently watching his master driving a tractor in the field across the road. It stealthily glanced at me as I passed, but looked away every time I looked, like when I took this photo. I knew what was up, as soon as I didn't look back it sprinted up along the wall behind me barking like crazy Wouldn't leave the property tho...



I'm sure I'm not the first to observe that if we could only teach that breed to drive humans might never have to drive a vehicle again. And in Ballyvaughan, a fur-bearing car security system, SURE that strangely dressed character with the bicycle was up to no good.



At Ballyvaughan a decision; I could stay on the busy but shorter N67 more direct to Doolin, or take the longer scenic route around the coast. Hey, no decision of course, the coast it was.... tho there was a chance if the road was bad and therefore slow, I might run out of daylight before Doolin.





Along the way two guys fishing. "What are you catching?" says I, "F*** all" they replied (Irish for "nothing"). Turns out the annual mackerel run was due any day, at which time the mackerel would take virtually any lure or bait, but not yet. I asked if the presence of seabirds indicated the mackerek were running. "F*** the birds" they said, "look for all the people".

Finally, the dark Cliffs of Moher, as seen from Doolin.



..or more accurately as seen the following day, it was near full dark when I rolled into Doolin.

Mike

bradtx

Mike, That carpet of moss (?) growing over the rocks looks like an ankle buster if not careful. The country roads and stone fences remind me of New England...

Brad

Sharpshin

My system everywhere is to keep my eyes open for a spot as evening approaches, the ideal is to not be seen and leave early. I need a hidden spot without trespassing. Finding such a spot I'll wait until there's no traffic, then quickly bail off of the road out of sight. In the absence of such areas I've stopped over in lit-up public places in full view. My simple quarter dome tent sets up in minutes.

One doesn't, not much. It helps greatly if ya wear just a single, loose-fitting layer of nylon that doesn't retain sweat, also I use no padding of any sort, and use a non-absorptive Brook's saddle. But a shower after two or three days on the road is most welcome.

Indeed, my system works like this; breakfast is the meal I buy and relax over, no coincidence that it is also the most inexpensive meal in a restaurant or cafe. On tour you can eat most any amount of food, its like throwing it down a bottomless pit. I have never been particular about what I eat, on tour its all about the calories needed to push you down the road. What I do is bring along a 32oz cup I use in reenacting. As evening approaches I'll stop in a store to get a half gallon or quart of whole milk. I eat a quart of granola mixed with raw oatmeal like cereal, "carb loading" overnight for the nest day.

Remarkably patient and considerate as a whole. I think part of the reason is they EXPECT the roads to be busy and to contain numerous impediments to travel.

Day 15: Doolin. 0 miles, 647 miles total.


As of that morning Wildcamping-7 nights, Campgrounds-2 nights, Youth Hostels-1 night, Hotels-4 nights. 14-nights total.

Seeing the West Coast of Ireland was a major objective on this tour. The Cliffs of Moher in particular were chosen simply because, on the map, cutting southwest from Ulster to that point and then heading south through Killarney and swinging around the coast to Cork made sense.

Doolin is a pleasant, touristy place that seemed to harbor a positive vibe. In the fading light I asked a very pleasant French family for directions, and nearby on the campground was this guy, from Austria, whom I was given to understand had driven up direct from Morocco in his way-cool AWD van.



Day 15 was the first break I took on this tour, one of four days I would do this over the whole forty. Going in, I had anticipated averaging 50 miles per day. I was about 100 miles behind that pace but still, I had been travelling every day for two weeks and it was nice to take a break. There is no town of Doolin per se, no rows of old brick houses, instead its scattered campgrounds, guest houses and restaurants along a mile or two of rural cul-de-sac, terminating in a quay where ferries to the Isle of Arran dock (and I should have taken more photos). The whole thing to me was reminiscent of a college town, in vibe if not in appearance, crowded with a lot of young, outdoorsy type folks from all over.

Anyhoo... I did get a photo of this guy along the way. The sign said "Beware of the Bull", but I'm pretty sure this guy was just waiting for handouts from passing tourists.



The first order of business was to walk the half mile or so from the campgrounds to the main drag in search of breakfast. Not much grease available here, especially not that early, I think I ended up with bagels from the veggie-trendy cafe associated with a sort-of Youth Hostel. I did get on the internet and located a bicycle shop in Ennis, twenty five miles away. Top Cycle in Ennis didn't have any 700x32 Gatorskins in stock (700x28) was the size all the local road cyclists used, but they could have a couple of folded tubes in of that size by the following afternoon. I was impressed, some random guy from America call 'em up and they ordered the tires (ahem.... "tyres") no money up front.

I'm a bird guy, a big time birder, sometimes I get paid for it, surveys and such, which accounts for the binoculars strapped to my chest the whole time on this trip. All along I had been stopping for chats and wheatears and flycatchers and wagtails and such. Besides seeing the cliffs I'd seen in photos a hundred times, for me the appeal of Moher was the seabird colonies. Walking back from breakfast and internet browsing mid-morning, the road to the dock was already crowding with vehicles and tour buses. I bought a ticket for a standing-room only tour boat to see the cliffs, the motive for me being the birds.

Never got that close to the cliffs in the somewhat rough and spray-soaked ride, but I saw puffins and razorbills and guillemots, kittiwakes and fulmars. One thing not apparent in my photos is the sheer scale of the cliffs. That little nub along the top, center field, is O'Brien's Tower, a forty-foot three story structure built by that gentleman in Victorian times for the tourist trade. The cliffs are 700 feet tall at that point.



They have a line of tourist shuttles in Ireland called "Paddy Wagons", green-painted buses with an image of a stereotypical leprechaun painted on 'em (OMG, I felt culturally offended ). Late afternoon, after the boat tour, I took one to the visitor center at the Cliffs, six miles away by road. High winds and bouts of heavy rain by that point. Last bus out was at 6:30, I missed it, thus setting the stage for one of the more incredible experiences of this whole trip; the five-mile walk back along the footpath that runs along the top of the Cliffs of Moher.

This photo shows the gist pretty well; there's the footpath, and there's the 700' drop, right there.



Actually,leaving the visitor center for the path, I was wondering at the time at the suicide hotline poster they had posted. Turns out they lose people off of the cliffs every year. And the irony, I was in a country where a couple of clips of .303 ammo is a felony, yet they let the general public walk a path like that. Back in the 'States this path would have been liability city.

The wind blowing so hard at times, strangely enough in the direction of the ocean (for ocean it was, nothing but water lay between me and North America), that I had to crouch down to keep from getting blown over. Other places the path was washed out, those places it was a hand-over-hand proposition to keep from a fatal slip. Everything got soaked in the driving rain, including my iphone which refused to respond to my swipes of the sodden screen. So I missed some photos, and most are all misted. At times I was progressing gingerly along, repeating a mantra to myself: "...I will not fall of this f******g cliff, I will not fall off this f*****g cliff...". It was totally friggin 'awesome.





Along the way I espied this odd structure like a sundial nestled against the cliff.



It was a memorial.

Sharpshin

Well, all things must pass, including good things, at length I was off of the cliffs....









...and all that remained was a wet and soggy trudge back to Doolin.



It was dusk and drizzling when I made it back to town. On the main drag there was a pub which, when I had first seen it the evening before I had thought "Huh, that looks like one of those fake Irish pubs", until I remembered where I was

At this time in the evening it was packed, but not with the college-age crowd but rather with the sort of upscale folk that had made me nervous by passing me so close and in a hurry the afternoon before on the ride in. I'm embarrassed for their sake that when I walked in, dripping water from every fold and looking like a drowned rat, I was looked at askance, by patrons and bartenders alike.

Well "f*** 'em (sorry about the language, I think I was learning Irish ), I squeezed into the corner of a table, ordered something Irish with beef that fer the life of me I cannot recall the name, and settled in to watch a European football cup soccer game (likewise, I forget now who was playing). One other good thing there, in the main room traditional music broke out.

Now I'm sure these guys were on a payroll, this being a very touristy location after all, but they did play very well.



Mike

bradtx

Mike, The walk along the cliff is awesome! Paddy Wagon, huh?

Brad