29th September - The missing Day

I don’t know how people blog professionals. I do this to keep friends and family updated with what is going on so they know not to worry, it also has turned into a bit of a diary to help me remember the trips. Just writing the small number of words that I do takes a lot of time, just setting up and sorting photos. Difficult to do when staying with friends. So, this a day that I just realized I missed.

The sky looked OK and I was over for riding, so David plotted a route to head north of Dublin to take me on a tour of where he grew up. You can see the track we took going North West of Dublin on the map. We passed the house he grew up in, that was quite remote and opposite a farm, and headed to Bective Abbey which was David's playground when he was a kid.





A very attractive ruined Abby.






A very inspirational childhood playground.

By comparison, my childhood playground was an abandoned WW II Naval Defence Gun Emplacement in Harwich where I played with Cordite that used to get washed up on the beach from a WW II Cordite Barge that sank.  I am amazed I still have both hands and all my fingers.

Believe it or not, I used to sunbathe on the roof of that tower. There are no stairs up to the roof, you have to climb........... I have no idea when my fear glands developed, but I an't going up there now!

After stopping off for a snack we headed back to Bray. The weather looked like it would hold so we decided to take the long way back through the Wicklow Mountains, the area we had ridden through the day before, but this time via the Glencree Road where there is Ireland's only German war cemetery. 

The cemetery contains 134 graves of mainly Luftwaffe (Air Force) and Kriegsmarine (Navy) World War II personnel.  Many of those interred within washed up on the country’s beaches or crashed their aircraft overhead.

Among the buried soldiers from World War II, 53 are identified remains and 28 are unknown. There are also the graves of 46 civilian detainees who were being shipped to Canada for internment when their ship, the S.S. Arandora Star, was torpedoed by a German U-Boat in July 1940, as well as the graves of six people the British held as prisoners of war during the First World War.

Görtz, an Abwehr agent (German Secret Service), is buried here.  He parachuted into County Meath in 1940 as part of Operation Mainau. He established contact with “V-Held” aka Seamus “Jim” O’Donovan of the IRA. He was eventually arrested after evading the authorities for 18 months, along with IRA member Pearse Paul Kelly at Görtz’s safe house in Dublin in November 1941.

The Cemetary is set in an old quarry in a remote spot.   Any distraction created by passing cars is drowned out by the cascading river.  

We then set off to Bray where we had been told that there was a small classic car show being held on the beach.    Bray Head is in the distance.  

 It is on Bray Head, that following a wildfire that removed all of the undergrowth, that they discovered stones laid out to spell Eire, a bit like a Made in China Lable.    No, this is not proof that the World was made by Aliens that forgot to remove all of the country labels, apparently, it was there to let the WW II German bombers know that they had gone too far.

Question is, why did we not cover the coast of England with misleading signs to confuse the Germans.

After a refreshing coke in one of my favourite Bray Pubs, the Porterhouse, except it was no longer the Porterhouse and in the middle of a makeover that was sort of making it look like an Irish Pub should be, in the eyes of London tourist, if the pub was actually in London (most confusing, needless and disappointing), we headed off.

So ends the missing day.

Back home in London

So back in London now.  Well actually arrived last Monday after a really tough ride in the Wind, not much rain through.   

There was a distinct quality difference between the ferry on the way over and the way back.   I took Stena Line over and Irish Ferries back.   On both the staff were really nice, but the Irish ferry just a bit run down and not as modern.    I had upgraded to Premium on both.   I did have a nice chat with the Captain of the Irish ferry who was also into motorbikes though.  On Irish Ferries, it appears that you have to strap your own bike down to the deck.   I found this out when one of the deck crew muttered something with an Eastern European accent and passed me a cushion and a ratchet strap and pointed to a securing point on the deck, no words had been exchanged.  The cushion is to place over the seat to help prevent damage to the seat (they can snap if you are not careful when you ratchet down.   I guess they wanted me to strap it down because there is always a chance of damaging the bike if not done properly, so I assume that they assume that I knew what I was doing.  Poor person that has never done this before.   Anyway, I go to strap it down and the ratchet mechanism is all seized up from continuous exposure to the saltwater.   I call over to a group of deckhands standing about 10m away, but they just look at me and point to the deck, they don’t understand me, they don’t understand that the ratchet strap is broken.  My Eastern Europen is nonexistent, so I try to make it as simple as possible for them.   I hold the ratchet up, point at it and shout “It’s SH*T”.   It gets their attention and one of them walks over in a very disinterested way.   He takes the strap from me and goes to ratchet the bike down.   The ratchet is stuck.  He looks at me and says “Very Sh*T” and walks off to get another one.

The drive from Pembroke to London is particularly dull if staying on the Motorways, which I did to try to get back fast.   Even so, it was a 6-hour ride, stopping only for fuel and a quick snack.   I arrived in Pembroke at 13:00, just in time for the lunch hour rush, then as I traveled towards London I started picking up all the traffic of people leaving early for the weekend, so the motorway was windy and busy.    You need a lot of concentration on UK motorways when they are busy.  People just drift into daydreaming and stop paying attention, so you have to stay alert and make assessments on every car ahead and behind you.   I fitted bright lights and air-horns to improve my presence on the roads.   I only once had to use the air-horns, that makes me sound like a lorry, as a Mercedes tried to move into my lane, they quickly backed off. 

I arrived home at 19:00.  Had a quick snack and was asleep by 20:30.   It had been a very very tiring day.

Despite the rain and wind it had been a great trip with some great ride outs.

Ahoy Wales

Now approaching wales on the ferry.   I got the 0845 Salling and it arrives Pembroke in a few mins.    I then have a 5 hour ride ahead.   One set of waterproof gloves are completely wet through from the ride to the port this morning.    Good job I have a backup pair with me.   

Today we will mainly be driving tractors

What a ride through hell yesterday.   5 hours of rain and wind.   My waterproof gloves ended up like sponges soaked through with water.  It was so so so wet.  

Today is a day of rest.  I have a 08:45 ferry booked for tomorrow morning.    So I should be back in london Monday night after a hard drive from Pembroke.   

The Inner Ring of Kerry - Sort of

It was so nice to wake up this morning and see blue' ish skies. We were in between two weather fronts and it looked like the day was going to be good.


A late start, we left at 10:30 after breakfast and lots of dilly-dallying around. Tim had a plan. I had been biking in this area before and done the famous Ring of Kerry before. The Ring of Kerry is a scenic drive around the Iveragh Peninsula in southwest Ireland’s County. The Iveragh Peninsula is the next one down from the Dingle Peninsula. Tim had plotted a route that took us through the center and the Ballaghisheen Pass. Have a look on the live map of my travels to see the route, mainly because I have no idea where we went, all the Irish names are unpronounceable. The roads, if you can call them that, were almost empty of traffic. There were the annoying tourist coaches, but luckily they were mostly parked up when we came across them extruding their occupants (I use the word extrude deliberately because everyone looks the same. They all must go to the same "buy your Irish holiday clothing here R' Us shop). However, there was one interesting encounter with a coach coming in the opposite direction. We were sort of going uphill, and there was a coach sort of coming downhill. Tim knew that at the point where we were going to meet was a tight bend, a narrowing of the road and a stone bridge. Tim indicated that there was trouble ahead by waving his arm slowly up and down. I could see the coach approaching from the road up on the left and I could see there was a bend in the road, but not how sharp or narrow. Taking Tim's warning I slowed. Tim slipped around the bend just before the coach got to the narrow bridge on the bend, me, just as the coach started to go around the bend. I sort of nestled in between the coach and the stone bridge and came out the other side. That coach was stopping for no man or beast, or motorbike. My description sounds more heroic/reckless than it actually was.


The roads Tim chose were truly stunning. None of my words would pay them justice so I will just post the photos.


Arriving back we had a swift relaxant. That Jameson Crested is truly a magnificent whiskey.


Tim wanted me to meet some friends of his that lived a short walk down the road. I think Tim needs to realign his internal distance monitor, short was not the word I would use. Anyway, we set off and soon, it is pitch black now with no street lights, a car pulls up and asks directions. the occupants are two Americans on vacation. Tim is also American and moved to Ireland ages ago and still has his American accent. So he strikes a deal with them. They drive us up the road and he will give them directions.................... so they do and he does. We then arrived at his friends and had a few glasses of wine and a nice chat. Me being Mr. Prepared (Perfect Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance) meant I had a DayGlow vest and a torch that shines White or Red. So we had a very visible stroll home along the dark roads in our yellow and orange dayglow vests and colored torches.


Tim is in bed now and I am sitting here writing this Blog and drinking all his whiskey. Don't tell him. I'll top it up with water and he will never know.


Tomorrow I am setting off to Ferns in County Wexford to annoy more of Frances's friends and drink their whiskey. Rain is forecast, so I will decide on the route in the morning.

A long, very enjoyable ride today

I will post a description tomorrow.    Now time for a relaxant

  

Off for a ride today

We are off to the next peninsula down.   There is a break in the weather before the next storm hits.  

 

My little log cabin.  

I am now holed up at Tim's, a chap I met at one of the recent adventure motorbike shows I attended,  he foolishly invited me over, and I accepted.   He has me staying in a nice log cabin at the bottom of his garden.   It was quite chilly last night so I had the log burner going keeping me warm.   No riding today as there is one big storm pounding the Dingle Peninsular, so staying in in the warm.  But tomorrow looks good so we should be able to do some riding.

I had a great ride yesterday morning.   The hotel was kicking me out at 12:00 and I left right on the dot as I was still tired from the trip from Dublin.    While I was packing up a couple of Americans were just driving off and stopped to ask if I was heading out before the storm hit, I said that was staying around for a few days.   But the storm had them flustered and so they were heading East to get away from it.   I must admit though, the storm is really kicking in now and quite glad I am in a stone house.

After leaving the hotel yesterday I passed a group of GS's with UK number plates, we did the biker thing and waved at each other.

Dingle High Street

I then headed West to do a loop around the most westerly part of the peninsular through Coumeenoole.    An amazing coastal road that was so good I road it three times, narrow road one car wide, blind bends and a low stone wall one side and rock the other.

Great views of the rugged coastline.

But why, oh why do they allow big lumbering tourist coaches on this road, or at least have a system where only one is allowed at a time.   But apparently, there is a rule that they all must go Clockwise around the peninsula, which is a really sensible thing and not at all Irish............

Then it was back towards Dingle

The Satnav got a bit confused and directed me to what it thought was a dead end, it was actually a farm track and I could see the main road ahead in the distance, so I just blasted on,  my first bit of dirt track riding, then on t the main road that heads to the Connor Pass.

Top of the Connor pass

Then charged down the past as best I could dodging the traffic comming up the pass.  I have some gopro footage I will post later.

Then I was arriving at Tim's for a nice cup of tea.

The weather was still good at this point so he took me for a stroll to the source of the river Glenahoo.

Apparently, there are around 20 wild horses that live in the valley, very friendly.

So that was it for yesterday. 

Today is going to be a bit uneventful.   But I think this afternoon we are going to spend some time in Tim's polytunnel tending to his tomatoes.  And in the meantime, I have made friends with the stray cat that moved in recently.

The smallest cat I have ever seen.  Now asleep on my lap.

Fungie every where

But it does seam a little off, having a big house size image of Fungie the Dolphin next to a sea food restaurant 

And what would you base your local exonomy on? a fish!

What a great start to the day.   A hotel that will not kick me out until 12 and sun.    The sun is out, there is no wind and I can put up with the chill in the air.  

Body is all still from the ride yesterday so out for a stroll.    

Dingle is a very nice postcard pretty town.  But would base you local economy on a Fish?    A dolphin arrived a few years ago and decided to hang around.    A dolphin called Fungie.    It is Fungie everything everywhere, even a bronze statue   

Let’s hope he does not get board and swim off.  

Don’t give up - PRESS ON

So today was tough. After fixing the heated gloves, and they are oh so nice, I was back in the monsoon rain and gale force winds being blown left-right t and centre. The idea of 3 hours of this and then having this solid for the next few days was making me doubt continuing. I started thinking about the time to Dublin and the ferry, then the bad weather across Wales. Will it get better, will it actually get worse? well I am here and there is a plan. So I pressed on. After 2 hours the rain stopped and the wind eased off. Rounding a bend on a high up road I could see splatters of sun and the hills on the edge of the Dingle peninsular, they were cloud covered, but the clouds were breaking up and it spurred me on.

Soon I was in Tralee and riding past the windmill, it was a welcome familiar sight as I had ridden in this area before. I had been working out where to stay along the route, but now Dingle was in reach I thought it would be nice to stay there as I had never stayed there before. I avoided the main road to Dingle and headed for the Conner Pass that rises through the hills. On reaching it I realised I had been here before and on a motorbike. A stunning single track road that winds its way up the hills with rocky overhangs. I have to go this way back tomorrow so I am going to set up the GoPro and record it.

It was a really good ride once I got past Tralee. Great motorbiking roads. So Happy I did not give up and turn around.


On the way up the Conner Pass. Now how many roads have a Turn Back Now sign.

At the top of the Conner pass, dingle in the distance

Staying at a nice harbor front hotel.

And my reward for today, a big T-Bone steak at Danno’s, a restaurant a few doors down.

Windmill

Heading to the hills

No horses

Cold and wet and time for the heated gloves

Hands getting cold at wet, so I pull over to get out the heated gloves and connectors.    Pull into a service station where I can shelter under the canopy.    As I pull in I see a KTM parked up with the rider inside having a coffee.   Anyways I dig into my pannier and pull out the gloves and cables and start getting ready to leave.    Out comes the KTM rider and we exchange one of those multifunctional nods.   In this context it is a nod of mutual respect.   We are in gale force winds and rain and pushing on.  We are real bikers.   So it was a good job he could not see me plugging in my heated gloves.   

So off I set and turn the gloves on and wait for the comforting warmth to permeate my body.  Nothing......  bugger. ...........:   So I pull at the next service station and take the seat off and trace the wires.   WHAT A FOOL.   I hade forgot to re connect them to the fuse box(I disconnected them for the summer.).  So connect them all up and head inside to drown my misfortune in a coffee.   

No wild Atlantic way for me today, I think it is going to be a bit too wiled.     So cutting through this weather  on the motorway.   

 

There may be troubles ahead..............

A Ride around Wicklow

We went for a ride yesterday around Wicklow, but I forgot to pack the Satalite tracker. I suppose it was the fact I was riding with a group of friends, so felt safe in not having it with me. I forgot that it is also tracking the routes I take, building the history of my motorbike trips, never mind.

There was a break in the weather so we decided to head off towards the Wicklow Mountains and stop off for brunch at a biker restaurant called the Wicklow Heather. The weather was so nice I even put on sunglasses, but chilly enough to keep my waterproof outer layer on.

We set off and headed South out of Bray taking the side roads and headed to the Sally Gap, a pass through the Wicklow Mountains with spectacular views of the surrounding bog (big open grassy muddy sort of thing, not a small porcelain thing) and the Wicklow Mountains. Sally Gap is one of two east-to-west passes across the Wicklow Mountains. A bit like "What ever did the Romans do for us"?, the Sally Gap road was built by the British after the Irish rebellion of 1798. It was built by British Army forces looking to flush rebels from the hills, and to this day is known as the Military Road. Highlights of this winding, twisting feat of engineering include the Glencree valley, the dark waters of Lough Tay, Kippure Mountain, and Glenmacnass Waterfall, which was amazing to see due to the torrential rain that had been happening for the last few days.

The riding was great but challenging. The challenging bit was staying focused on the roads when the views were so great. If I had been riding alone I would have stopped for a few photos, but hunger was driving us forward.

Amusingly we saw the opposite of a Ruined Castel. This was a Part-Compleated Castle. Obviously, a film prop as it was made from wood sheets and scaffold poles. Perched high up it will probably look quite impressive when finished, we will have to see what film it appears in.

More great riding through tough narrow wet roads with greasy slippery leaves and mud kept us alert.

We went in a big loop around the Wicklow Mountains National Park and finally stopped off at Laragh for lunch at the famous biker restaurant. Except we were the only bikers there. Earlier that morning Ireland had lost to Japan in the Rugby World Cup, so I assume they were all far too depressed and crying into their Guinness to venture out. Apart from the persistent Wasps, we had a nice brunch.

We then set off South East to pick up the coast road at Arklow (sounds like an industrial cleaner) and one of the chaps wanted to stop off at Avoca where there apparently is a famous poem, by a famous chap about where two rivers join.



Really quite a nice spot, so I took a picture of one of the rivers, but I have no idea which one.





We then set off along more country roads through Wooden Bridge that were virtually empty of other traffic so we were able to really indulge in the twisting roads.

North out of Arklow the coast road is so close to the coast it was covered in sand in places, not deep, but enough there for you to be wary of. Then we shot past Wicklow, Newtown and Greystone and headed to our final destination, the new Distillery at Powerscourt for coffee and a few very, very, very, small samples (yes, so small they bearly coated the tongue).

They had three whiskeys on sale, none made there as the spirit needs to have been stored for a minimum of 3 years (I think) for it to be called a Whiskey. So what they have done is being in another Irish whiskey that is supplied exclusively to them. The cheapest was a blended whiskey that was quite light and very aggressive. The mid-price one was a 10 year, pleasant, but lacking in depth. The top of the range was the 14 years old and exceptionally nice. Like all Irish Whiskey, it is not smokey and quite soft with deep rich complex flavors that are best "opened" with the smallest hint of water and a wonderful rich finish (the label goes on and on about hints of chocolate oysters, citrus, spices, larks tongue, ok I lied about the last one, but you get the idea, well they have to write something. The 14 year old was so nice we bought a bottle to drink later. It's a nice little distillery and well worth stopping off at.