02/08/2014 / Saturday / Grapevine Hostel, Dingle, County Kerry - Cliffs of Mohr - Westport, County Mayo / 230 miles
Its 7am Saturday morning and an early start for us. Being that’s its early and bearing in mind, that for some of the guests sharing the room with us, it was ‘the morning after the night before’. We did our best to be quiet, but you can only do so much, with huge zips on our soft luggage bags. Having slept in my riding gear I managed to a quick exit by simply, picking all my luggage I had up in one go and move it carefully out, into the hallway before rummaging for that days essentials.
The owner, who showed us around last night, had invited us to use what we needed for our breakfast from the kitchen, so after raiding the kitchens cupboards, I ended up with a full bowl of muesli to fuel me for the morning. I made sure I also sampled the tourist pamphlets near the door for future visits.
Outside, Dingle, was very quiet and peaceful, as we loaded up the bikes and struck ours engine in to tune.
Fig. 1 - View from the Dingle Peninsular, across to the Basket Islands. |
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Beehive hut or Clochán in Irish, stock internet photo. |
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Fig. 4 - The view from the Conner Pass. |
We then flowed down the other side, which turned out to be a far more gradual gradient than the climb. Alex filmed most of the way down, but unfortunately for me, as I was leading, I had left my darned indicator on most of the way down, much to Alex’s amusement, as it had by now become a running joke with me, forgetting to cancel them.
We re-joined the N86, main road in the North of Dingle and followed the N69, to catch the ferry from Tarbert, crossing the Shannon to Killimer, choosing to cut off a small portion of the coastal road. We chose to take the ferry for a couple of reasons, one was to add verity and the other was to save time.
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On the way, our luck finally ran out and it chucked it down. Unfortunately my gamble in choosing not to bother donning my rain proof jacket in the faith that today would be sunny, failed miserably and I got drenched. On top of that the air temperature had also dropped and I was soon shivering.
We eventually arrived at the Cliffs, to find the place absolutely jammed up with coaches and tourists. There was a car park provided but for the 6 euros just to park there for a few minutes we decided not to bother. Whilst trying to find a place to pull over safely, to point the Satnav to our next destination, we inadvertently found a side road, where we could see people walking across the cliffs, a few fields away and we thought sod it why not, let’s hike across the field and hop the fence. Why should we pay someone to see a natural site? Luckily, before we struck out and as we were naturally feeling a little apprehensive about our rebellious decision. There appeared a woman, just hopping back over a gate 20 yards further down, the road and was now walking back to her car with an easel slung under one arm. Alex rode over, to have a quick chat to her and as it turned out, she was a local, who had been coming here to paint the cliffs for years and she explained that the fee a few years ago had only been 50 cents. She didn’t see why she had to take any heed of it and fully sanctioned our endeavours. She also explained, that she uses the path, we saw her come from most weeks and has had no problems whatsoever, so with that we parked up and got hiking.
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A few miles up the road from the Cliffs of Mohr whilst following the R477, that hugged the coastline, the landscape completely changed again. This time it seemed that we had found ourselves in a lava field, that stretched from the sea up the hillside, to the horizon. We pulled in at a layby and went exploring.
Fig. 9 - Limestone pavement, seemingly like a lava field. |
Fig. 10 - Alex for scale, he's a useful chap!. |
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Fig. 11 - A closer view of the limestone pavements, showing how the weather is slowly dissolving them. |
The weather got worse again and we had to stop in at a service station, in Galway to fuel up and take the opportunity to grab dry clothes out of our bags, with the plan to get some food and get changed in a MacDonald’s just further down the road. We also decided not to do the Connemara Peninsular today, as we felt it deserved a day with better weather, to get the most out of it. So the decision was made to push on to Westport and meet up with the others, at the house they were due to stay in. So with warm beds to look forward, to we set off.
With Westport only an hours ride North, Alex seemed a little impatient to get there by overtaking like a mad man. On the Satnav I spotted that there were a few turns to take on the way, but unfortunately, as Alex was leading this time, he didn't know this important fact. So, I had to step out of my comfort zone to catch him up. More importantly to me he also had my diary, safely locked in his dry panniers, as my tank bag, I had discovered was not water proof, destroying my Guinness playing cars and leaving me having to dry my diary under the hand dryer, in the MacDonald’s rest room, much to the curious looks from folk. Plus, Alex was the only one who knew the address of the house, as he had internet access on his phone. These little facts, where going through my head as I was considering the scenario, that I might lose him and have to carry on solo. Next time I’ll make sure I carry all my own stuff, just in case.
We got there in just over an hour and met up with Mike and Alexa, at a café in the centre of town, to find as predicted, their klutzy friend had given them the wrong key and it was going to take 1.5-2 hours for another of his friends to currier it up from Galway.
We stayed at the café whilst Mike and Alexa went off to a restaurant they had had to pre-book, as all the restaurants where jammed up for the bank holidays. We could get food at the cafe and had a late lunch whilst awaiting further developments.
Eventually we got into the house at around 11pm, firstly having to park the bikes on the back patio, with some dexterity, needed manoeuvring through the small gate.
We all had a quick catch up, sharing that days adventures and planning tomorrows. The plan being that myself and Alex would go explore the Connemara Peninsular, in a loop starting early the following morning. Then I would split off solo, again, to complete my circuit.
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