Blogs from Ireland, Europe - page 15

Just a quicky this evening. Today was a moving-on day. We collected our car, now to be known as Sherri, and headed out of Dublin towards Belfast. Rather than taking the direct route up the M1, we headed over to the east coast and harbour-hopped. We visited Portmarnock, Malahide, Rush, Loughshinny, Skerries and Annagasan before heading up the M1 for the last hour or so of the trip. They’re all lovely little places, and we had a wander around at each of them. I attempted a couple of caches, and managed to get one! We spotted a drawing of Luke Kelly on an electrical box near Rush Harbour - he does get about! We’re staying just off the Falls Rd. The Airbnb seems OK, although there is an odour of petrol as you walk through the ... read more

Ireland the North 1 Monday. Downings. Another great day with a sunny and warm start up the hill out of Ardara after a good breakfast at the Nesbitt Arms. Not quite as special yesterday but still a great day with great views of inlets and loughs with plenty of ups and downs to please the grimpers (climbers) amongst us. Either the sunny weather and more amenable wind are having an effect on me but I am now not arguing with myself and continually checking the kilometres left to go and hoping that there are defibrillators available ahead. We found a couple more unknown coffee stops but with limited food so we’d did right in buying sandwiches in Ardara. As we headed inland we climbed a long drag up to the Glenveagh gap, passing loads of scrap ... read more

Sunday 5th June Our first full day. We arrived in Dublin Airport an hour late last night. That’s pretty impressive when the flight is only 40 minutes! Still, I’m sure Ryanair did their best. After a stroll around the area of our B&B, were we found a sculpture of Luke Kelly who started The Dubliners in 1962, we had a burger for supper, followed by a pint of yummy Orchard Thief for me and Guinness for Susan at one of the 700 pubs in Dublin, we headed back and settled down for the night. We woke this morning to grey skies and rain. Not to be thwarted, we headed out along the Liffey towards Dublin port. The path was built along the site of the old railway tracks, and the cobbles and concrete depicted the pattern ... read more

Ireland Friday Donegal Last night I had a walk along the Garavogue riverbank behind the hotel in amazing sunny conditions, a marked contrast to the weather when we arrived. I circled back along some quite run down streets with businesses and bars closed down. Having said that the city itself is very vibrant and full of people in the move. We got away under an overcast sky with occasional sun on pleasant roads to our first stop at the nice Jam Pot cafe in Grange. The scenery,whilst nice,was not as outstanding as previous days with green countryside of beef cows and sheep. The route was rolling and away from main roads as much as possible with occasional meanders around the coast. At one point there were three men fishing in a fast flowing estuary, one of ... read more

Ireland Wednesday 1 June Nice and sunny for most of the day with a mild north westerly wind which followed is for the first 20km in green cow country. The scenery was good with mostly better farm land, apart from the section alongside Lough Conn which was a bit wild and rocky. A nice cycleway took us alongside the river from Castlebar to Turlough and then past Turlough Tower built about 1000 yrs ago with a now abandoned church built alongside at a later date. The route north was undulating with no massive hills to make the day’s climbing of 760 metres. After a light lunch in Crossmolina we headed to our destination of Ballina along some pleasant minor roads taking us past the remains of Deel Castle and what looked like an abandoned church with ... read more