Steve's Adventures 

Mon 15th May

Breakfast
Musili with Soya and banana, Multivitamin, Primrose, Garlic, Water

Lunch
Mashed Potato, beans, 2 sausgaes, water

Dinner
Toast, Tuna

Snacks
Lucozade, 3 x bottles of water, Apple, Coffee (black)

Slack weekend - 65 Miles

Well it was supposed to be but having spent Saturday kicking my heals around the apartment and getting very bored I went for a bike ride on Sunday. Up at 4.30am and cycled over Sally Gap down to Rathdrum. From there back to Wicklow and then home via Greystones, Bray and Dalkey. Was great weather and completely wore myself out. Bike is falling to pieces though which is getting to be a right pain

Day 12

Sunday April 29th - Dooagh to Sligo - 147 miles - Total so far 1158 miles



Compared to yesterday today couldn't have been more different.

There are days that you wish only to be out in the sunshine on a bike, yesterday was one of those days, and there are other days you wish you were home in the dry and warm. Today was one of those.

Up at 5.30am I packed my bags including the sandwiches that had been made for me. I even pored the orange juice into my recently acquired bottle only to leave it behind in the room (though I didnt realise this until I was 30 minutes away and couldnt return).

Stepping outside I realised today might not be so great. It was raining. Not the downpour that tells you that this is short, sharp and sweat but that steady drizzle that tells you its here for the day and that you are going to get very wet.

Having skipped the "Atlantic Drive" without doing I was told I hadn't experienced the Achill Island I decided I had best take the time to cycle it. I am in fact quite glad I did as it was the hilight of a torturous day.





I really had been in two minds with the rain making visibility very poor but in the end the 43 miles around Atlantic Drive with miles of coastline in which no sign could be seen of mankind was very tranquil. One of the lay-bys is at the site of the Spanish Armada memorial. This plaque was erected to commemorate the ship San Nicolas Prodaneli which was wrecked on the shore at Toorglass, Currane Peninsula, in 1588.

It was at this point that the camera packed up (damp had gotten to it) as well as the trip computer on the bike. The computer I was able to salvage but alas the camera will need to be repaired. Not that there was much to see for the rest of the day anyway,

It was one of those days of just getting your head down and going for it. I was tempted to stop and wait for the next day to see what the weather was going to be like but the thought of spending a day hanging around a B&B reading a book, watching TV and generally trying to kill time before bed didn't really appeal compared to being able to get back to Dublin and spending the next day resting.

I got to Bangor and had a break in a cafe getting warm and having my second breakfast. I spread my soaked maps out on the table, wrang my gloves out put them on the radiator and looked at the mileage to Sligo. If I kept to my plan and went to Belmullet and then along the coast I probably wouldnt make it to Sligo in time to get back to Dublin. Plus the weather was foul and the area in North Mayo very remote and bleak. If I sustained a puncture I could find myself in a pretty bad place to be looking for shelter. So I decided to just head down the N59 and go to Sligo which was 100km away.

Arrived in Sligo very wet and tired at 4.30. The railway station was illusive to find and when I did find it I was informed that the Sligo to Dublin train didnt take bikes. Luckily there was a bus that would so ended up leaving Sligo at 6pm. Arrived back in Dublin at 10pm and cycled home.

Strange to think that I have used Heuston station for the last time and that from now on its most likely to be bus or train from Connelly. Also looking at the map and the distances left only have about 6-7 days cycling left and I was just getting warmed up as well

Day 11

Saturday April 28th - Galway to Dooagh - 150 miles - Total so far 1011 miles

Over 30 years ago my parents used to take my brother and myself on caravan holidays to Ireland. I have to be honest and say I can remember little of them except disjointed memories of various "incidents". I do remember long boring car rides from our home in the UK to the ports either in South or North Wales punctuated by stops for something to eat and drink. I remember the rain drumming on the caravan roof with us all playing Monopoly for hours. I remember setting fire to a hedge, kissing the Blarney Stone, falling asleep in a pine forest, seeing a pony and cart in Kerry, walking along the Liffey in Dublin, writing a journal of when we went to Bantry, and of course if I didnt already mention it did I say I remembered the rain?

One memory that does stick out was of a visit by the family to Galway, or as I discovered this weekend, to the resort of Salthill just a few miles outside. It was one of those rainy days and we had been couped up all day in the caravan with little to do. The rain had stopped so we jumped in the car and went for a drive. Ending up in Salthill father parked up and we went for a walk along the seashore. We passed an amusement arcade and my brother and I pestered my parents about going inside to play. We were given a choice. We could either get 10p each or come with them for a cup of tea at a cafe just down the road. Well it was no contest and grabbing the 10p each of us we offered we entered the amusement arcade to play the slot machines. I was probably 10 or 11 years old and my brother 6 or 7.

We exchanged our 10p into shiny 1p coins and headed to the slots. Now I have to be honest I dont remember if they were pennies or 1p coins. I have a fealing that they were big old pennies. Anyway I go upto a slot machine and I put in my coins anxiously watching the wheels spin round hoping to win something. My little brother watching by my side eagerly holding his 10p hoping to have a go after me. On my last coin the most fantastic thing happened, I won the jackpot, which at that time was £1. Ka-chunk Ka-chunk, Ka-chunk and our ears were filled with the sound of 100 pennies being disgourged from the slot machine made two little boys very happy. With big smile on our faces we took our winnings to the change booth and in return was given a £1 note, probably one of the first ones I had ever had.

My little brother eager to have one of his own gave me his 10p and asked me to get him one as well. Being confident that it would be no problem I gladly took his money and then made a big show of walking up and down looking for a suitable machine. I would stop at one and look at it and my brother would look up with expectation, I would shake my head and say "no, not this one" as though I knew what I was doing. Eventually I chose a machine and inserted the coins. After 5 tries I had won nothing and my confidence was beginning to wain. After 8 I was thinking that all was over and that I would have to share my newly won £1 note. On the last coin I won 2p which was hardly what my little brother was expecting. His face looked up at me with an expression of bemusement and he couldnt quite understand why I hadn't won yet. So I went for broke and inserted the 2p winnings and unbelievably on the last try I once again won the jackpot. A huge smile lit up my brothers face and once again we exchanged the coins for a £1 note.

At this point my parents came to pick us up expecting us to have lost the money only to find two very happy little boys clutching our winnings and with big smiles on our faces. And thats about all I remember of Galway.

So why did I mention this? Well I caught the 6pm train from Dublin to Galway after work on the Friday and then cycled the short distance to Salthill going right past the amusement arcades and tea shops that had been the scene of my one and only gambling success story from 30 years ago. The place looked so much smaller and less impressive than it did all those years ago but it did bring back the happy memories.

I stayed in a B&B run by the mother of one of the chaps I am currently working with and who happily agreed to supply me with a cold breakfast in the morning. The only bad aspect of the start to this weekends cycling was that I had forgotten to bring my water bottles with me having left them on my desk back in Dublin. After settling in I popped out for a Chinese meal around the corner, where I was complimented on my skill with chopsticks so I guess not many people in Salthill get to use them, and then to the supermarket for more bananas for the next day.



Waking at 5.15am I crept around the B&B so as not to wake people and ate my breakfast. Heading off into the pre dawn gloom I was soon flying down the road to Spiddle with my sights firmly set on Clifden which was my destination for lunch today.

The bike was performing well after having been repaired this week. Last weekend my gears started to really play up with the chain constantly slipping off when using the middle cog. When I took it to the shop they told me that my gears were completely worn out and that they needed to be replaced. Then they didnt have the set in stock so it was a bit of a panic to get them delivered and fitted before I left. I shouldn't complain as the bike has done something like 4000 miles.



The scenery was stunning with the sea to my left and the rolling mountains of the "Twelve Bens" to my right. I could also make out the Arran Islands and The Burren.







I was making such good time that I covered the first 60 miles in 4 hours so instead of having lunch in Clifden I in fact had breakfast. This made me feel a bit like a hobbit having "second breakfast" but I needed the calories. One nice thing that had happened was that I had stopped for a roadside chat with a fellow cyclist who seeing that I had no bottles kindly gave me one of his. A lovely gesture that I was unable to resiprocate as I had no spare gloves (he had lost his).





I had planned to finish the first day at Leenaun but yet again because of the speed I was going I reached there by midday. A lovely little town at the end of Irelands only fjord it was very tempting to stop but apart from nipping behind the church to apply some vaseline to a very sore butt I decided to press on and get lunch elsewhere.

I did bump into another cyclist outside Leenaun who was probably the most ill prepared cyclist I have come across todate. He was riding a mountain bike and had a tent tied to the cross bar with remaining gear hanging off his rear rack. Wearing jeans and a heavy woolen top he had just stopped claiming himself to be "feckin bollox'd" having cycled 4 miles and in need of a fag break. Mick was quite a character and we chatted for 10 minutes, him smoking a cigarette from which he had removed the filter and me munching an oatmeal biscuit. His declared destination for the day of Letterfrack was about 10 miles away while mine was still a good 6 hours cycling away. With a cheery wave we set off in opposite directions with a hearty bon voyage. He was heading for the closest pub and I couldnt help wonder if he had the right idea.



The ride upto Loiusburgh was delightful and I passed a French couple eating their lunch. They were mighty impressed when I told them I had cycled from Dublin but it somewhat paled when they told me they had spent last year cycling all over the Far East. We exchanged stories about Vietnam and I Moved off with me feeling somewhat jealous of them to have been able to do something so adventurous.



I found a cafe and had lunch being served by an English lady who had been a taxi driver in Brighton for 18 years before deciding that enough was enough, sold up, and moved to Ireland to waitress in a cafe and semi retire. Couldnt fault her choice of location as it was truly a beautiful area.

Conemarra with its bogs and mountains was a delight to ride through and with the weather turning out to be glorious I couldnt think of a better place to be.

Westport and Newport came and went and before I Knew it I Was on Achill Island somewhere I thought I would have been having lunch the next day. Not far from my final destination for the day I bonked and had to lie down and rest for 10 minutes to regain some energy. Lying flat out on my back looking up at the sun munching a biscuit I took a rest though I did get a few glances from passers by and one old lady stopped to ask if I was ok. Eventually I arrived in Dooagh where I had a wonderful meal of local fish beofre checking into the B&B and grabbing a shower.





Watched the sunset and then headed to bed. My longest day in the saddle yet and a heck of a distance covered

Galway to Sligo

Days 11 and 12 of what was planned to have been a 3 day weekend saw me go from Galway to Sligo, Saturday was glorious with wonderful weather and stunning scenery. Sunday was a nightmare with constant rain for the 11 hours I spent cycling. Was able to get some serious mileage done in what was my most ambitious weekend so far.

Day 10

Sunday April 23rd - Kilkee to Galway - 90 miles - Total so far 861 miles



It all started so well yesterday evening when I booked into the hotel. In fairness I had been warned by a work colleague that Kilkee was the favourite destination for party people from Limerick and I should have twigged this from the fact that somebody had tried digging a hole through my bedroom wall. I was tired, it was raining and at the hotel promised a bath, buffet breakfast for me in the room for the morning and a restaurant in the hotel so I didn’t have to go out in the rain.

The food was grand and I watched Chelsea get knocked out of the FA cup by Liverpool on the big TV before retreating to my room. The bath had turned out to be a tad disappointing as it was actually made for dwarfs and I didn’t fit so well. I did get to have a soak though my legs were propped up at 90 degree on the wall at the end.

Sleep came very quickly.

The problems started at about 1am when the drunks came back to their rooms. It seems that people are very hard if hearing when drunk cause they shout a lot and for some reason hotels that seem to cater for hard of hearing people tend to have paper thin walls and doors. It was so reminiscent of Wexford except rather than kids running around it was drunks speaking to their mates on mobile phones. Still it didn’t last too long and I was soon sleeping again.

The biggest problem came at 5.15am when I woke up to discover that the breakfast I was promised never materialised in my room. Nor was it outside my door, though that was probably a blessing as some guy with the nibbles would have probably taken it away. The breakfast room door was locked so it wasn’t in there either so I resigned myself to heading out with only a banana and a bottle of water.

The next problem was how to actually get out of the hotel as every door was locked and there was no sign of any night porter to let me out though I had been told one would be on duty. It was so tempting to open one of the fire doors and probably set the alarm off, payback time for all those people who had woken me up to abruptly the night before. I’m just not that sort of guy though so instead I climbed out of my bedroom door like some thief at night, in fact if I had been spotted their probably would have been some explaining to do “Hello officer I know it looks suspicious climbing out of a hotel room window at 5.30am on a Sunday morning but I can explain…”

Roads were once again completely empty and the rain from last night had stopped. County Clare beckoned and the day promised to be fine weather and I was not to be disappointed.



The first stop of the day was Spanish Point which is where one of my colleagues’ girlfriend comes from. A lovely spot and with the sun up and the weather starting to heat up the cycling was proving to be very enjoyable.



One of the highlights of today was to be the glorious Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs of Moher are one of Ireland's most spectacular sights. Standing 230 metres above the ground at their highest point and 8km long, the Cliffs boast one of the most amazing views in Ireland.

To the south of the cliffs is Hag's Head and the cliffs reach their highest point just north of O' Brien's Tower. The Tower was built by Cornelius O' Brien, a descendant of Brian Boru, to impress female visitors. The seastack, Breanan Mór, stands over 70 metres above the foaming waves.

Strange things people do to impress their women folk.

As I was visiting the cliffs at 8.30am on a Sunday I thought I was going to have them almost to myself but this is a very popular destination. A coach load of American ladies were already descending down from the cliffs which have been turned into a horrendous building site with the construction of a new visitors centre and car park.



I dropped down the other site and caught my first glimpse of the Arran Islands which lie just off the coast here. Famous for the wild scenery, weavers, mountains, old stone forts, and Gaelic traditions the Aran Islands in Galway Bay attract a lot of tourists. On the largest of the islands, Inis Mor, there is an 11-acre stone fort that overlooks a 250-foot sheer drop to the sea.

Breakfast was in Doolin which was a lovely little village. I cycled right past a pub serving cooked breakfast so I couldn’t resist. I even had the pleasure of sitting outside in the sunshine.

Cycling through Clare I kept thinking at anytime I would look into the fields and see Hobbits working away, to meet cart and horses on their way to market and to be ever fearful of the black riders hunting for the ring.



With the ever present castles dotting the land it’s hard to believe that this area was once so wild and desolate that many a fight was fought.

At last the rolling fields gave way to the more barren aspects of the area known at “The Burren” which are huge formations of limestone that march down from the hills and mountains all the way to the sea.



In the far distance I was also to get my first glimpse of Galway bay and the area known as Connemara, but for now I just enjoyed the Burren.







Finally after what seemed like a very short day, in fact it was just gone 1pm, I reached Galway. Always striving to be efficient (I annoy myself at times being so anal) I found the train station with the intention of catching the train I was told left at 3pm. In fact it was leaving in 10 minutes so I elected to get home to Dublin early and jumped aboard.

The trip back to Galway flew by due to two very good reasons. The first was that Galway to Dublin by train is just over two hours, compared the 7 hours it took me to get to Dingle, and the second was my conversation with Pat Flannigan. Now that’s a great Irish name except she was an English lady who married an Irish builder and had lived outside Galway for 31 years. She proudly told me of her 6 children and we chatted away about this and that. Yet again, just like meeting Liam the day before, I was struck by how exciting my life must seem to people who have been happy to make a life in one place. She told me she had only been on one holiday in the last 31 years and that was to Paris for a weekend.

A glorious weekend of cycling.

Day 9

Saturday April 22nd - Dingle to Kilkee 116 Miles - Total so far 771 miles



Dingle, along with north Donegal is about the furthest you can get from Dublin so correspondingly getting there is quite an epic journey. In order to make an early start on Saturday I had to leave work at 2pm on Friday to catch the 3pm train from Heuston station that would take me the closest I could get my rail at Tralee. Arriving at about 7.30pm this is the longest train ride in Ireland and the cause of many a complaint amongst my fellow travellers as inevitably there was no buffet due to staff shortages. The ride was pleasant enough especially as I got to chat with one of the passengers who turned out to live around the corner from where I am staying in Dublin. He was the accountant for large electrical appliance store chain in Ireland so we got to chat about IT systems and accounting. Strange that many years ago this is the career I had started out doing when I was an accountant in the military, boy how our lives have turned out differently. At Tralee I grabbed some fish and chips and waited for my bus to take me to Dingle. While waiting I got chatting to a German couple who were walking in the Kerry area and heading to Dingle to finish off their holiday. Seeing my bike they got reminiscing about the bike holiday that they had undertaken a few years earlier in Kerry and told me all about the Connor Pass that I was to tackle the next day. The boyfriend turned out to be a very keen cyclist as he cycled 60km a day to get to and fro from work, makes my 12km a day seem a trifle wimpy. I arrived in Dingle as the light was fading at 9.30pm and eventually found my B&B that I had booked the previous day tucked away on the outskirts of the town. The lovely landlady had put a pot of tea in my bedroom so I sat in bed munching a couple of digestive biscuits and watching TV.

I was up at the crack of dawn, in fact I woke up at 3am, 4am and finally at 5am I was standing at the bedroom window trying to decide if it was light enough to leave by. In the end thought what the hell and off I went into the pre dawn gloom. Dingle was quite sensibly fast asleep and didn’t notice me as I whizzed through on the way to my first part of the day which was to be spent going around Slea Head.



Pre dawn Dingle with a very faint moon over Dingle harbour.

The roads of course were completely deserted at this hour the morning and I had an extremely pleasant two and a half hours going around the very well sign posted circuit. The area is rich in archaeological sites dating back to the pre historic era. Quite remarkably some of the conical huts in use at the time have survived to this day and the ones I saw from the road looked in remarkably good shape considering their age. Seems the Irish were as good builders in those far off days as they are today though I am sure some of the buildings I saw had maybe been “restored”.



As dawn came on the outlines of the Kerry peninsular across the bay began to appear. The views were stunning.



At the end of Slea Head are a group of islands the most famous of which is Great Blasket island.



With a halo of cloud the island looked beautiful. These islands were in fact inhabited until 1953. Though it sounds romantic it must have been a bleak existence to have lived there. I find myself wondering what sort of life it must have been and romantically consider moving to a number of the many spots I have cycled past so far. But the reality of having no easy access to Tesco and at least a 6mb broadband connection soon squashes such thoughts.

This is the area where the film “Ryan’s Daughter” was filmed back in 1970 with Robert Mitchum, Trevor Howard, John Mills and Sarah Miles. A wonderful film and a wonderful area to have filmed it.



Sunrise eventually came just as I was past Blasket and though it was cloudy I was rewarded with a glorious fireball of radiant sunshine peeking over the distant mountains. Acting as a beacon it hovered over me all the way back to Dingle where I arrived at 8am just in time for breakfast. This was gratefully consumed as I had already covered some 40km and knowing that I had a fair few miles to cover today it was just what I needed to restock the energy levels. At breakfast I got chatting to a couple of American girls who were touring Ireland having just finished their finals.



The Connor Pass was one hell of a climb but not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Having had a bit of rest before attempting it I fairly shot up like a Tour De France mountain climber (dream on). At the top I awarded myself the polker dot jersey as king of the mountains and drank in the view.

With a last look back over my shoulder at the distant Kerry mountains I dropped down the other side and raced for Tralee. The road coming up had been widened, the road down to Dingle though was hard up against the mountain and wound down with some very narrow places. At one spot I reached 42mph before I cam back to my senses and slowed down after I realised the consequences of hitting a pothole or getting a puncture would result in some pretty grizzly knee grazing.

Passing through the village of Camp there was a memorial to a train accident so I looked it up on the web when I got home and found this rather interesting entry.

The road between Killeton and Camp bends sharply at the Curraduff bridge, and just above the road bridge stands the old Tralee and Dingle Railway viaduct. As David G. Rowlands write in "The Tralee & Dingle Railway" (Bradford Barton, 1977), this line had "some of the most frightful curves and gradients ever engineered on a light railway. On Whit Monday of 1893, Locomotive Number One came off the rails and fell 30 feet to the river; 3 men and 90 pigs were killed. To ease the bend here, another bridge was built in 1907 a few hundred yards upstream.

Opened in 1891, the 3-foot gauge railway, with a branch line to Castlegregory, was extraordinarily slow and accident-prone. Undulating between sea level and 680 feet (207 metres) above, trains were often stopped and sand spread on the tracks to give sufficient grip to tackle gradients. In 1939 the Castlegregory Branch was closed; in 1944 the Tralee-Dingle goods service ended, largely because of the wartime coal shortage; and from 1947 until closure in 1953 the only business was the cattle train for Dingle Fair on the last Saturday of each month. Less than a mile along the road to the east from the viaduct bridge, the water tower at Knockglassmore is all that remains of Castlegregory Junction; on the opposite side of the road Fitzgerald's, or the "Junction Bar", was much frequented by railwaymen and passengers alike and was the cause of many delays.

Dingle to Galway

Days 9 and 10 of what was the some of the best cycling so far and certainly the longest distance I have ever covered in 2 days. I reached the "almost halfway" mark of Galway. Was strange to finally leave the Kingdom of Kerry having spent so much time wandering up and down the various peninsulars but I finally got to cross the Shannon River and head north. County Clare was stunning and I can't wait to resume the journey with what I am told is some even better scenery. With the days getting longer and the weather hotting up I cant wait

92.8

Back in Stockholm spending Easter with Susie. Lots of walks in the park, good food and cuddles :) Weighed myself and pleasantly suprised to find myself at 92.8kg. Not only have I reached the goal I set for myself at the start of the year but I have done it in 4 months, so chuffed with myself. Now that I am at my ideal weight I still feel though that there is room to tighten up and lose another 5kg to get back to where I was when I was about 30 :) Watch this space

BUPA Fun Run Dublin

No cycling this weekend as I had foolishly volunteered to take part in the Great BUPA Fun Run in Dublin. While 10km used to be a jog in the park for me its been almost 10 years since I did any serious running and to be honest its probably been 15 years since my peak of fitness. Couple this with the fact that I have no real running shoes here in Dublin meant that it was more a test of character and endurance. I set myself a goal of 1 hour and came in at 56 minutes so not so shabby. It actually was fun especially as a whole bunch of us went from Bearingpoint