Back across to the East Coast.

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Time to leave the beautiful West Coast of Ireland for the East.

Had a little trouble leaving Galway as both Tomtom and road signs insisted we should take the new motorway N6 and we wanted the old non-motorway N6 which has now become the R446. We did manage but did have to do a couple of about turns.

Not an especially inspiring route, just the cross-country road from Galway to Dublin across very flat countryside all the way.

We stopped where our guide book instructed.

At Athlone, where the bridge across the mighty Shannon River is a narrow bottleneck. We parked on the other side at the top of the town but for the first time here in Ireland, were not 100%!h(MISSING)appy security-wise and locked up with window alarms all set. There was a woman begging nearby and her horrid child had rushed up to me saying “give me money”. I gave her none after that, it was really rather unpleasant.

Nothing to see in Athlone as we were not taking a ‘Viking Cruise’ down the river so we carried on our way.

We stopped for lunch in Kilbeggan where there is an old whisky distillery which is now a museum. We photographed it but did not go inside as we ‘did’ distilleries in Scotland and Bob prefers an occasional gin to a whisky.

And so to Dublin, our original campsite. The rain started soon after we arrived and is according to the forecast, here again for the foreseeable future.

We were very amused to see a German hotel camping coach (Rotel Tours - Das Rollende Hotel) arrive complete with 2 dozen happy campers. They were all very busy setting up tables outside (brrr…) for communal dinner and a big marquee thing which extended out of the side of the ‘bedroom trailer’. Not sure how much they would have enjoyed the evening. They were all huddled into their big coats to eat dinner and then after 5 minutes the rain started and it must have been very noisy sleeping with the rain thundering on the bus roof all night.

Each to his own but Bob and I prefer to travel, just the two of us, in our lovely Tandy.

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