Doolin to Ballyvaughn – Day 3 Morning (19km/12 miles, relaxing cycle)

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Doolin is a small fishing village on the west coast of Ireland, often referred to as the capital of Irish traditional music. There are also numerous archaeological sites, many dating to the Iron Age and earlier. The name Doolin comes from “Dubh Linn” or black lake, which is also by coincidence the old Irish name for Dublin, the capital city of Ireland. It is said that the black lake was located on the site of what is today O’Connors Farmhouse B&B and Campsite (we confused the B&B with the Pub…very embarrassing). During the early parts of the 20th century Doolin was a ‘Gaeltacht’ or Irish speaking area, where in fact many of the people only spoke Irish.
We awoke to a cloudy but pleasant morning, ate, packed up our gear (and believe me I lightened the load considerably in my Pannier this morning), and headed out of Doolin at 9:30am. We were refreshed, enthused and eager to start the next day with a ‘grand’ start. [Note to my surely amused readers – I have been in Ireland for several days now, and with my clear Irish lineage, I feel compelled to now speak with an Irish brogue everywhere I go. I’m sure that I am quite passable as an Irish speaking person. I say ‘good mornin laads’, and ‘that was a luvly brown bred’, and ‘what a grand holiday this is’, and ‘aye’, and ‘tis’, quite frequently. I’m quite proud of this skill that I have…but I digress..].
Our day’s instructions promised a ‘relaxing’ cycle today. We made our way out of the B&B driveway, turned right, made an immediate left….and had to climb a hill for 2.5 miles. Not kilometers, miles. Oh boy. My legs decided that this was not how I should be travelling…not today…not tomorrow…not ever. Brian and Geoff were already far ahead of me and after barely 10 minutes of cycling up this steep sheer rock face I didn’t see how this was going to go on. But then things started to level out a bit, and my legs began to feel stronger. Before long, we were at the top of the bluff looking out over the town of Doolin on the Atlantic and the coast was beautiful. There was a fresh morning breeze and the day seemed to be clearing. The next leg of the journey was nothing like the day before. We coasted downhill through the backroads lined with pine trees and streams. We came upon a beautiful castle in the countryside and stopped to snap some photos. Eventually we were headed for a village called Kilfenora, and we made it into town relatively easily. Kilfenora has a medieval church and some Irish high crosses, as well as a fantastic visitors center. We hung around Kilfenora for an hour or two (and I got a diet coke so I was now ready for anything), then set off to the next village of Lisdoonvarna.
Good thing I had my diet coke earlier, because the next leg was a five mile trek uphill again. Before long, it started to rain. It was funny to see the three of us on the side of the road, taking a rest, feeling some early rain drops, looking at the clowds and wind blow…then scramble to pull out our rain gear and get it on before we got soaked. The rain was cold and heavy, and the wind blew at us mercilessly…here we go again. [Note to my faithful readers…recall when I said my pannier was full and heavy earlier…well I did come prepared with rain gear which was smart…even smarter, when I shopped for rain gear, I found the lightest rain gear I could possibly find, because I knew that I wanted to keep my weight down for what I was travelling with….so when I put my super light super inexpensive rain pants on, then tried to swing my leg over the bike…I got what I paid for….huge rip in the seat of my pants…]
We made it to Lisdoonvarna just as the rain was stopping, and just to make sure we didn’t forget we were on a ‘relaxing’ bike trip today, there was another steep climb just to get into the city center. Ugh. When I finished dragging my bike up the hill with my ripped seat rain pants, and joined my lads at the top of the hill, we set out to find our lunch stop. We found it and had a great chat with the proprietor who took a great interest in us (and actually knew Zingermans!!), but then he said he wasn’t serving lunch today. He sent us next door, where we sat in a café on the main street and had a wonderful lunch at a large window and recharged our batteries.
Lisdoonvarna was a great town. It is best known for its month long matchmaking festival. Traditionally after the harvest farmers came down from the hills to spend their hard earned cash and look for a wife in a September festival of drinking and dancing. It is also a spa town and is known for spring waters, which contains magnesia, iodine and iron. This would have been a fun town to explore further, but we had 19 more miles to go to reach our next destination, Ballyvaughn!

Gaelic word/phrase of the day: Is léir ó anseo síos an cnoc (It's all downhill from here...a phrase used often by the local folk when asking directions, and they lied every time.)

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Photos

The hill that almost did me in
Ok, it may not look like much in this photo, but it certainly FELT straight uphill...in the rain and wind.

Mark in Ireland
In the Burren on the road to Kilfadore. I never took my helmet off...never.

Ballynagoman Castle
We came upon this castle along the road!! It is a private residence currently...how nice.

Kilfenora
Check out the triangle windows in teh grey stone building on the right...what is that all about??

Church in Kilfenora
Apparently this church was built on the site of a former church around 500AD

High Cross at Kilfenora
This was brought inside to preserve it. There were three high crosses in Kilfadare. Quite beautiful and very old.

Lisdoonvarna roadhouse
Mr. Peter Curtin, proprietor, didn't feed us but sent us next door. His wife is visiting Zingermans in a few months to see about expanding her smoked salmon buisness.