trains beers mountains and drams

The Woodfield hotel in Limerick was ok we had a pleasant stay but nice hotel rooms make for long lies and dalliance, by the time we loaded up checked out and got back to the point i finished cycling yesterday it was 10:36am, when i started cycling from the Power Whiskey Distillery. Then I had 17km to cycle just to get back to the Woodfield hotel , i passed this 40 minutes later , its shit cycling for 40 mins to pass where you woke !     The cycle through Limerick wasn’t the best, i hate cycling in any city especially ones i don’t know , the traffic was busy i ended up walking the bike big sections of the city centre trying to find my cycle route out , in the end i was look for the r510 leading to the N21 but at one stage had to cycle along a motorway hard shoulder for 2 km I took the first turn off and used google maps to find a road back to where iIhad planned to meet Sheila at a place called Adare not too far from Limerick we thought , turns out it was 27miles when i stopped

Tuam and galway to where          We woke in the hotel at 9am it was great to get a good big double bed for the night .  I considered trying to clean the bath a bit as i had suncream on and bike oil and lots of beasties when i had my wash last night ! the bath had a ring ! we headed out of Galway up to the new motorway, the M17 ( the first time i went to Southern Ireland 30 year ago !it had only one motorway, the M1 Dublin to Belfast ) we had a slight issue finding my end of cycling point as Sheila headed a different way in the van and we met in the centre of town ,           all of which led to a navigational error cycling and driving out of Tuam. I noticed my mistake early and headed back into town to pickup the Athenry road which was our  Our next meeting spot , and it was a excellent cycle there. Along lovely country roads in the sun , I stopped to take pictures at the quiet man railway station ( a favourite film of my dads ) then met Sheila in Athenry, it's a nice town

      after our great night out we were shattered in the morning so it was 9am before we woke another late start ! sheila dropped me at the bottom of the road where i had cycled from on the previous day but it was 10:50 by the time i set of cycling with all the stuff we had to organise , the road i had to cycle through sligo was all sort of main roads with traffic lights 3 lanes big junctions so i opted to cycle mostly on the paths watching the signs , and ended up on the N5 which is a duel carriageway  that was ok the dual carriageways here have yellow markers at the side with wide borders for cyclist and tractors      the N5 lead to the N15 and the lovely big verges i was getting used to were lost it was single carriageway with no big inside lane for tractors and cyclists ,     I met sheila at 13:00 at a place called tobercurry after 24miles of cycling and we had a soup and sandwich in a nice italian cafe( the coffe doc) in the village square and restarted cycling again at 13:45  

       Sheila got up early as she wanted a run and a swim along the beautiful beach we were parked up at , I opted to have an extra hours( and a bit more) sleep which i now regret i shoulda made the effort, it was a beautiful morning and the cold sea would have eased my tired leg muscles.         It was over 20km from our campsite back to the road house Sheila drove while i charged devices and took notes in my book ,we had not seen the site attendant we had phoned the number at reception to get the keypad code for the shower block and he said he would see us later but never turned up ! so we put the 15 euros in a envelope through reception door as we left          set of time was 10am and the weather was glorious i had to put on lots offset cream and the start of the days cycling was mostly downhill through a lovely mountainous part of donegal          I met up with sheila again at 12:45 in a place called ballyshannon and we had lunch in a cafe there ,and had a photo stop with

      Started here I wore the spoggles all day but they didn't work as I lost too much peripheral vision ! Especially when trying to look behind ! We are used to sleeping in the top section of the van now and Sheila got up earlier than me made coffee and porridge and shoved them through the hatch and the wee side coffee hole ! a great find for me lie up on the roof and open this wee hole to receive a mug of coffee in bed , after coffee we walked into the village square to use the toilets but at 08:20 they were not open yet . the metal barred gates were padlocked shut ! i popped my head though the bars in need of a number two i could squeeze through those bars , yah beauty through no problem once i took my jacket off and sheila followed suit , all was well until we left, the caretaker was preparing to open up ! embarrassing moment or? what did you get locked in last night ? nope we squeezed through your bars like this ! sorry man we needed in ! closed means closed sir , yeh sorr

Day 2               This was always going to be a busy day I`ve been looking forward to this day for a long time now , this will be the  proper start to the adventure today , yesterday was all about getting to here the real start of the trip , the weeks of planning were all about getting to here                Its still our holiday and the planned early starts need to be realistic ! so when i woke at 05:30 i thought no way am i getting up this early ,and went back to sleep until 9 which was bit later than planned , it was still raining and miserable i drove to the rathlin island ferry terminal to use the toilet block there and went into ballycastle town centre for a cafe breakfast ,           its not a long drive from ballycastle to carrick a rede bridge our first destination of the day , the weather was absolute pants howling a gale and raining , not the best conditions for walking a rope bridge ! but sheila ROPED me into paying £8 for a ticket to do the bridge and even though I&

                         A housewarming party with the boys from the rugby club and girls from the outdoor swimming group wasn't the best preparation for a drive to Stranraer for the ferry to Belfast , It was always going  to be a struggle getting out of bed , double coffee before getting dressed and final packing ( travel mug for more coffee Gaviscon and a big bottle of water required en route ) ,             the drive time should take around 2hr 30min and we need to be at the ferry terminal an hour before our sailing , I've done this crossing countless times on both the big ferry and the fast catamaran , the coolest time was when I went over on the motorbikes for the NW200 with the lads , I will never forget that roar of the motorbike engines as the doors of the ferry opened slowly in Belfast harbour         and this time i was lucky enough to be right at the front of the cars behind all the bikes as the doors opened and we were heading out with the roar of the engines ,

organization of the van Packing for M2M                   from experience you always end up forgetting something regretting not taking something and wondering why you bothered taking other stuff ,we all do it no matter how experienced you are on trips away , Sheila has been looking at some sea kayaking tours in cork which I would love to do also, And it started me thinking maybe I should get the roof bars back on and take my sea kayak ? its a long journey with a sea kayak strapped to the roof for possibly only a couple of hours in the water ,so this was only a fleeting thought but it shows how you end up taking far too much stuff .                   The packing took nearly 2days ! most of that was servicing the cycles and checking I had plenty inner tubes and cycle tools, I took everything out the van and repacked it using a list so hopefully I will have forgotten nothing ! .I printed off the list  of stuff to take and printed it off to tick as it was put in the van Th

cycling the length of Ireland                        Its been on my radar for a long time now to cycle the Irish end to end I cycled the British end to end( lands end to john o`groats the lejog ) way back in 2008 this is now 10 years ago and it was my plan to do the Irish end to end after I had done the Lejog , because I've cycled the length and breadth of the UK having done the C2C also in 2002 , I have done other brittish cycle routes but I have never done any cycling abroad motorbiking and driving yes but no cycling ! I am going to rectify that and cycle the Irish end to end ,I have been saying that for a number of years now and this year decided to act upon it , Its difficult when you are working full time to organize things like this with your time of work as there's so many other things to do with your free time , I had to prioritize this  and set a date for it,But most importantly It will make it so much better and easier to have a support driver not only to get