Ireland: a scenic return journey

If you're counting, you'll notice that a day has been missed out. Sorry but the day concerned - Friday -  was one of torrential rain and high winds so no cycling for us. We spent the morning tucked up in our little cottage, packing for the next day's return, ploughing through the vast supplies of buns, cakes and nuts that we seem to have accumulated, and the afternoon in the local cinema!

Here's some pics of what we saw on our return journey, driving across Ireland to the ferry. 

The roof of Kilkenny Cathedral

Nowadays, every early death is a tragedy; in 1844, they saw things differently. 

Street art in Limerick

Cool candelabra in Limerick

More graffiti in, yes, you guessed it! Limerick. 

Jan and Mark recreate the infamous 'runner' incident in Cashel. 

Ireland: saving the best for last

Going back to the hand thing, Dingle is your index finger - the most northerly of the four, with more mountains, better roads and - for some reason - the most interesting buildings (let's not get on to my pet moan about the dreadful euro bungalows). Our Airbnb is just down the road from Tralee, overlooked by the Slieve Mish mountains and backing on to Tralee Bay. 

Following our by now well established routine of driving half down down the peninsula, we left the car at the top of Conor Pass, took some pics and skedadled down to Dingle town to commence the Slea Head tour. 

A rather dramatic panorama back looking north from the Conor Pass car park in a rare moment of sunshine.

This turned out to be our best day. The road around Slea Head was dotted with car parks and viewing points for the many tourists who were enjoying some clear weather and the best views of the WaWa we had yet experienced. It was here that Stanley Kubrick filmed Ryan's Daughter and he certainly got a cracking location! Lovely shots out to the Blasket Islands and across innumerable wild and unspoilt bays.

This is what we hoped to find along the WaWa and, clever old Ireland, she had saved the best for last. 

Ireland: the blarney in Kilarney

After the rigours and the rain of yesterday - not to mention a startingly indifferent meal in Kilarney, we set our sights fairly low on day four: just a quick tour round the lakes of Kilarney before driving up to our next Airbnb at Tralee.

Jan thought it would be nice to ride up through the Gap of Dunloe and then back to town in a scenic little loop, past the lakes. Mark and I weren't fooled for a minute but the route had the advantage of simplicity and, this being Ireland, you are never more than 100m from a coffee shop… 

But, as the road wound up the valley, it narrowed, forcing the coach passengers to disembark and take a strategically placed pony and trap up the hill. But there were few takers and, other than a few brave walkers, we had the road to ourselves. 

And, behold, it was good. Perhaps the prettiest bit of cycling we've encountered: no coaches, no cars, no cake shops - just a lovely little track crossing and cross-crossing the stream that tumbled down the hill. Oh, and no rain either. Hurrah! 

Caption time? Encouraged by Jan's helpful exhortations from the top of the hill, Mark decides to walk!

We reached the top of the pass in high spirits and set off along an excellent path through unspoilt valleys with a bit of off-road biking by one of the lakes to add to the adventure and some bike-carrying up a rough footpath to detract from it. We emerged at a charming crossroads where stream and bridge met sky and sun, inviting us to whizz down the 10km back to Kilarney for lunch. Still dry! Thanks St Bernadette.

One hiccough: we managed to 'forget' that we had some bikes on top as we emerged from the car park in Kilarney, until a nasty crunching noise brought our progress to a grinding, anxious halt. No serious damage, except to the roof rack and to our sang froid. 

Ouch!

Ireland phase 2: from Cork to Kerry

After three nights with super-relaxed Chris in Bantry, it's time to move on to the next phase - the Ring of Kerry. Actually this is just across the water from where we were yesterday, on the north shore of the Beara Penninsula - not that we could see if for the mist! 

We had planned to start with a lovely ride over the Caha mountains near Bantry, including hand carved tunnels and dramatic mountain views. Alas the day dawned misty with outbreaks of fog. Or was it foggy with outbreaks of mist? So plan A was abandoned...postponed until our next visit as the ever-optimistic locals would probably say. 

The family cemetery of the O'sullivans was remarkable for the way that half the cemetery was bog-standard marble forest, with a traditional range of uninspiring memories of loved ones gone to glory, while the other half was, unaccountably,  derelict - as if the good Lord had unleashed a rightous thunderbolt on a funeral procession. Did someone other than a member of the O'Sullivan clan attempt to gain entry? Did someone say a bad word or think an impure thought? 

Instead we drove on down through Kenmare (where I had encountered some apocalyptic market scenes in my previous visit) and on to Smeed, where I let Jan and Mark out to ride up the hill in the rain and the mist, while I motored safely to a meeting spot. The coast road round the corner near Lambs Head was a beauty. You could tell by the quality and number of coach-friendly lay-bys that it's a top notch bit of the WaWa. The sign at the local pub said it all, 'The best views in the south west (fog permitting)'

But, again, a patch of clearer weather blew in and we found ourselves pedalling round the end of the peninsula, near Valencia Island and the romantically named St Finan's Bay. In truth it's not massively romantic; civilisation, such as it is, hangs on by a thread in all these remote communities which are great to visit but maybe not to live in. 

I won't go into any detail of the mountainous climb that appeared, as if my magic from the mist, which Mark and I ascended cursing roundly as we struggled past yet another shrine to Our Lady of Bewildered Bikers. 

Ireland: like a whore's knickers

If you imagine the four peninsulae of this area as four 'fingers' sticking out into the Atlantic, our second day of cycling took us along the ring finger, the Beara (pronounced like Nearer) Penninsula. It's too large to circumnavigate in a single go, so we used the car to leapfrog - one person driving, two cycling - along the south coast. Even so, the mist that closed in around us made it hard to enjoy the scenery and eventually left us all pretty soaked/in need of some dry clothes from the back-up vehicle. 

Dry-ish, we arrived at the head, Dursey Island, on four wheels, singing along to Adele. As we pulled up, what appeared to be a garden shed swung through the mist, bizarrely hanging in the cloud. A cable car links the mainland to Dursey Island itself, though the idea of jumping in and being winched into the fog didn't have much appeal. Instead we ate our sandwiches and mooched around for a while reading up on the history of the O'Sullivan clan who were grand fromages around here in their day.

Eventually the fog lifted a bit and the island hove into view, just a couple of hundred meters away. But by then we'd had enough and decided to point our wheels homewards, along the north coast of the peninsula. As we did, the weather lifted a bit, revealing a stunning rugged stretch of the WaWa punctuated by little coves, a winding road that was not unlike parts of the Hebrides - water water everywhere in pools, tarns, inlets - and the road snaking its way round a series of beautiful little inlets and hidden coves,  quite different from the south coast. 

We were tempted to get the bikes off the car and start cycling but, on cue,  the mist would descend again frustrating our hopes of getting going again. The route was much longer than the southerly section too - all that winding about, up and down and round the twists and turns of the the coastline marked this as a place worth returning to, for a longer explore. 

And then we encountered Coln. 

This is Coln (not his real name; not a real photo of him). We met him in the middle of the road on the Beara Penninsula. Literally the middle of the road because he was standing there, leaning on his bike, possibly in trouble. So we stopped and asked if all was well. 

He started from his middle of the road reverie and pronounced that he was fine, but that he needed to fix the gears on his old bike because he'd been all over the world, including the Auvergne, and, pardon his French, but this road was the fecking worst he'd ever encountered and he was knackered.

He certainly looked it.  We began to size up this pirate-like figure, propped up against a bike held together with string and distinctly short of up-to-the-minute cycling accessories. The red nose was a bit of a giveaway: this was yer actual bag man on a bike.  

But there were no flies on Coln. He had managed to bring traffic to a halt and he had an audience. So off he went again, bemoaning the state of his bike and of the road. Why,  this road was a fecking bitch was it not, pardon his french, it was up down up down...like a pair of fecking whore's knickers!

There was no obvious answer to this gobbet of wisdom and it seemed a good moment to squeeze past, stifling our giggles and marvelling anew at the diversity of human life to be found on the road.

Ireland: getting there and getting going

Whether you see the Wild Atlantic Way as a 1600 mile route of personal discovery along the west coast of Ireland or a clever marketing campaign devised by some desk bound publicity honcho in order to link together assorted tourist boards up and down this island, it's a  part of the world that has to be worth exploring. Ever since I drove along much of the route back in 2012 with four large teenage surfers in search of the perfect wave and the perfect pint of Guinness, I've been keen to return on two wheels and explore at a more civilised pace. 

Fortunately the traumas of cycling through Dumfriesshire in 2013 have faded in the minds of Jan and Mark since both have  agreed to come along for another ride, even though they could only spare a week from their respective busy lives. So, no messing about then! A midnight ferry was caught and day one was spent haring across the Emerald Isle to reach the area we wanted to explore: the four peninsulas of the very south west (called Mizen Head, Beara, Kilarny and Dingle). 

The wiggly stuff on the left was, mostly, covered on two wheels; the rest on four.

En route to Bantry Bay, Jan and Mark both got slightly excited by the plaster casts in Cork Museum - though they nearly walked right past the best exhibit, some conceptual corrugated iron by the enigmatic artist Ainee On. Geddit? Anyone could do it....

After a few cultural and caffeine-related fill ups, we got to Kinsale, south west of Cork,  which is a pretty busy tourist town & officially the start of the WaWa. The Old Head at Kinsale is a suitably wild and dramatic headland to commence the ride but, alas, it has been colonised by a posh golf club with forbidding gates and a no-visitor policy. So we parked just up the road, by the Lusitania Museum, and Jan set off. No point in us all getting wet. 

Jan sets off in front of an admiring crowd.

This is a bird's eye view from the other side of the golf course gates. Wow!

After that 'official' start, we drove along the coast to Clonakilty, Skibbereen and up to Bantry,  where we're airbnb'ing with Chris, an ageing hippy from London who moved out here in 1971 and never went back. 

Another one of those fabulous, jaw-dropping travel shots.
Don't you wish you were here?

Day 2: Getting going on Mizen Head

Tyres pumped, maps folded, sarnies on board,  off we went to explore the Mizen Head peninsula. When you eventually get to  its tip, you are at the most southwesterly point of Ireland and, not far off shore, shrouded in a little haze, you can see the famous Fastnet Lighthouse - another shipping forecast destination ticked off!

To get there, we had cycled along about 50km of quiet, rural road, not that different from western Scotland or northern Cornwall, especially as we neared the end of the cape which echoed John O'Groats' 'end of the world' feeling. Sadly for us lovers of waterside light, the road didn't all follow the sea's edge but it still offered plenty of interest for Mark and I.

Jan, bien sur, was soon a speck in the distance, happily speeding along at her own very unique pace while Mark and I happily weren't. Had we, by chance, come up with a possible solution to the perennial problem of riders going at different speeds which has so plagued my motorbike touring? Here we each ride at our preferred speed, having agreed in advance, where we were going to meet up. It requires that the fastest rider is prepared to wait for the slower at some point and also means that chance discoveries cannot be shared after the ride ('Did you see that church/neolithic picnic site/Arctic tern?' etc) but it seems a relatively small price to pay for good companionship. 

At Mizen Point, my legs told me they needed some calorific revival before I could attempt the return journey, this time on the north coast of the peninsula. And, 50km later, we got back just as the forecast rain began to fall in earnest...on the remaining member of our group who, natch, had extended her ride onto nearby Sheep's Head peninsula. LIke the sheep, we were all eventually gathered in safely, in time for pub supper and early to Bedfordshire. 

T de T: fin de ballade

Farewell from Nick

Farewell Georg, fairwell Neri. They set off from Ibis Budget Mark 6 at about 8.30 am, G determined to cross the border into Deutchland as soon as possible. 

We left beautiful Tours a little later on our final leg. This would be Loire day. Stephane took us as close to the North or Douth bank as the excellent country roads permitted. There was little traffic. Les Anglais - usually Loire-loving folk from June to September - have been staying away this year, a cafe owner said. She didn't know why but the bad weather might be a reason. Nothing to do with Brexit.

The Loire is such a wide and peaceful river. Hardly any craft on it. Occasionally a small boat with a single occupant fishing or contemplating the universe. Restful just to gaze at its slow flow from right to left as we sip some cold wine. All to soon I began to recognise the familiar South bank as we near Paimboeuf and le Pont de St Nazaire.

We arrived around 7 pm and there was just enough time to organise white wine in the fridge, showers and a final aperatif round the table which, in typical French style became supper.

Jony and I gave Stephane and Karine a bottle of whisky and a map marked with our journey and signed by us all. 

Our five-day tour is the little loop at the bottom;
Georg & Nery's one-day return journey stretches out to the right...

It's a screw Nick, not a nail.
Call yourself a Homesteader? 

To this I added the nail that had to be dug out of Stephane's rear tyre, that the mechanic handed to me. Stephane seemed pleased with the souvenir.

Now on the ferry, and England beckons. Hey ho.

T de T: two German pilots go into this pub

Sorry to see Georg and Nery returning to Germany today but they leave us with this classic, as recalled by Nick.

George began his joke in halting (very) English thus, as we strained to catch his meaning. "Zere were two German Luftwaffer airmen coming down in parachutes. Zere plane ist shot down kaput. Zey land in England und zey are very...sirsty. So zey komst to a pub, but problem. Zey haf no English (Ed. And don't want to be caught). One komst to ze bar and he says to landlord "Martini?" Ze landlord says "Dry?". Ze flier says "nein, Zwei".

Sorry but it's the way he tells them…

Georg' s audience react to his classic joke telling technique. 

T de T: joke of the tour

While we were enjoying a quiet coffee yesterday, Nick announced to the company, in his best French, that he was going to 'inspecter vos noix' later that day. After a moment of silence while the assembled company absorbed this news, Nick thought he should reinforce the point. 'I'm going or inspect Stefan's nuts, then Georg's nuts and finally Jony's nuts.'

A glance at our biker babes suggested that they were both horrified at the prospect of a testicle inspection. Surely, this time, the always-unpredictable Neek had gone too far?

A thought flashed across my mind. 'Nick: are you thinking of chicken strips by any chance?'

'Yes, of course,' he flashed back, ' I had some particularly good corners back there and I want to check whether their tyres are as worn at the edges as mine.'

At the news that Nick was talking about a pneus inspection, with a P, not a noix inspection, there was a general letting out of breath and much merriment at the pronunciation of this wonderful language.

T de T: de foie gras et technologie

Our Harley rider reports...Ha! A great day's biking - bends galore, little cafes in the middle of nowhere and wonderful endless dolopps of French countryside. What more could a cultivated and devastatingly handsome Hells Angel want?

Well in the absence of anything else, the answer is foie gras, washed down with some Montbazilliac or peut-etre some Muscat, served with warm toast and lightly dressed salad. Lovely evening tonight spent at Montlucon in a brasserie with a sun that refused to set, more foie gras and the treat of France v Germany at the Hotel. 

Trouble was that, just after the French undeserved penalty making it 1-0 there was a power cut. And that was that. The match continues and a keen Frenchman in front is watching the French hang in there on his portable. Hey ho. And so to bed.

Perhaps my favourite picture of the trip. Indulge me.

T de T: in which Nick rediscovers his mojo

Written by Nick after a night in Brive la Gaillard (spelling highly suspect). 

Yesterday was Wednesday, and a day in which Merle surpassed herself.  She is used to London traffic and hates it. But now she is on the open road and in the environment that Harleys are designed for. That said, Stefan served us up with spectacular riding - hairpin bends, steep gradients, winding descents. There were a few straight bits but they didn't last for long. Just as well for Jony, naturellement, who gets easily bored when the road lacks hair-raising excitement. He rides behind me to check that I am taking the bends with appropriate aplomb ie leaning over so far that you have to wipe road-kill off your wing mirrors. Actually I have come to suspect another reason for Jony's rearguard vigil - a secret briefing from wifey to keep me in view at all times... The trip was full of variety. Stefan's satnav directed our little convoy of 2 BMW 1600s, me and Jony's BMW 1200 down a farm track with low overhanging branches that had never seen a Harley before. I was expecting a farmer to stand in the middle of this grassy chemin with a pitchfork and a few chickens shouting "On ne passe pas!". A great day. 

Fascinating way of holding up a metal fence!

Ten hours in the saddle = ???

This was taken in Collonges-la-Rouge, a very cute sandstone village 
'nestling in the chestnut and walnut trees of the Bas-Limousin", close to Meyssac.
Very touristy, very pretty, very hot. 

If you're passing, check out Curemonte, 13km south east of here, whose  'brazier' golden-coloured sandstone mark it as one of the most beautiful villages in France - a high accolade indeed. 

Stephane shows no sign of wilting in the sun, 

despite wearing his biking jacket

T de T: held together by vines

We are led by Stephan, who is a 50 something in insurance, and is accompanied by his significant other, Karine, who is a 50 something in HR for a company who produce seals for the motor trade (Ed: shurley shome mishtake.)

 Stephan and Karine live, separately, near Les Mans in northern France where, for their sins,  they have six boys between 15 and 30 between them!




Next in the convoy is Georg the Bavarian giant, who has just retired from Aeon Insurance and lives somewhere near Munich with his partner, Nery, who is a small bundle of Peruvian polyglot energy.

Then comes Nick, from whom much more shortly, followed by his tail gunner, moi.

Although there is much more to be said about each of these two-wheeled pilgrims , it might be worth touching on how this unlikely group is tied together. 

Way back in the early 1900s, Rachel moved out from Paris to find somewhere to spend her summers/escape from the crush of life in 1920s Paris. She chanced upon a little seaside resort on the south of the Loire, where this majestic river rolls out into the sea at St Nazaire on the bottom of Brittany. She built/bought a small place in the Alleé des Vignes and here she brought up her children, including Jeanette who was another bundle of energy and who started walking out with a Yank, called Park Honan - a child of the 60s who had left his native America in order to find a new career

Amor vincit omnia and Park and Jeanette eventually married and set up home in Leeds where they had three happily bilingual children of their own. For holidays they brought these children back to France because they loved it there and because they had lots of friends living in the same little vine-clad Alleé who had children of their own. Nick's wife, Corinna, was one of those children. And so was Stephan, whose son, Marin, cooked us an excellent tartiflette the other evening in their grandparents' house, just a couple down from the 'chateau' - as the neighbours have dubbed the house that Nick and Corinna have converted in the Allée.

Neighbours came out to wish us well and take pictures of the biking convoy. Whether their history stretches back to Rachel's time or whether they are  relatively new arrivals, whether they are full -time residents like Joceline or summer expats like the champagne communist Christian, all are bound in to the local community that seems to be held together with frequent coffees, glasses of something, little impromptu dinners - and much chat!

Mon Dieu, do they talk! To be honest, after a day's tiring biking, interspersed with a stop over to meet Henri, Stephan's uncle  His aunt at their flat in La Rocelle, my limited reserves of French conversation (like my stomach and petrol tanks)  were pretty much exhausted. I would have happily curled up with a good book and a glass of something. But that's not how things are here: Nick in particular is on a lifelong mission to find the perfect pun and pursues this object with a determined passion. Old stories, new stories - all is relentlessly plumbed for new material as he entertains all and sundry in his immaculate, deliberately awful french. Surely, I can see them thinking, this man is not going to embark on that tale? But he does and, inevitably, they are drawn in and beguiled by his charm and bonhomie. 

In addition to the search for the perfect pun (chapeau de nuit anyone?) we have another reason to persist: we both feel awful about the result of the referendum and are on something of a charm offensive to explain to our European colleagues, who are bemused and appalled at the British vote in equal measure, that we are not all exiters. So our  little multi-ethnic pilgrimage/convoy, battling through the language barriers, winds its way through the lovely countryside...

T de T: and it's goodnight from him

Time for bed, but just before I slip away, let me remember Rochefort with its old harbour and rope making factory or "Corderie" weith 120 meter long workshops all along the side of  a gravelled yard in stone that looked very much like Greenwich. 

Alas the rope-making museum was not yet open when we arrived 
but they had some nice photos on the wall to show what ropes looked like.

Or perhaps looking round the Cognac museum and discovering that Cognac and Armagniac differ because the latter is distilled only once. Or perhaps the wonderful detours that Stefane would suddenly take off the main roads into beautiful little villages with flowers everywhere and farm animals wandering about without concern, plunging into forests along tiny roads through shade or dappled sunshine. 

I defy you not to misread the name of this vessel!

But the final saddlesore arriving is a real joy - a basic Budget Ibis Hotel with a shower that works and a few moments to get yourself together. Today we then went out into Bergerac, a very old town, with houses that must have been no younger than the 16th century and slender streets with cobbles and gutters down the middle. Lovely little place in the middle of the town to eat, near the bridge over the river Dordogne, Beautiful and memorable evening. Night night.

Nick

The swallows were going crazy over the river that evening!

Nery and Karine discuss the finer points of tonight's menu. 

Georg contemplates life in the main square at Martel