Ireland: Wacky Causeways & Achil Island

 Today turned out to be one of my favourites of the whole trip. We found a random causeway heading to two small islands called Inishnakillew and Inishcottle. Really secluded little places tucked away, with a small fishing industry and probably holiday homes these days. 

This whole area is made up of hundreds of little islands. It would be a great place to sea kayak or sail around. 

The WWW winds its way now onto Achil Island. The scenery around the coast line is stunning, the roads were just begging to be ridden, but the coastal views stopped us in our tracks many times.

Eventually, we stopped at a pub for some food. This turned out to have traditional Irish music, so we stayed to listen. During this, we got chatting to a family, who invited us onto another pub after this one, so off we went. Around 2am, we pitched our tents in a beer haze and slept very soundly!!

The next day, woken by munching sheep and a quad bike in the distance, we visited the abandoned village of Slievemore, which is on a peat road. Its history is compelling and the ruins are quite impressive given their age. 

After finding a mad breakfast wrap in a garage, along with some typical garage coffee and a very bubbly attendant lady, we left the island and rejoined the WWW. 

Meandering along quiet inlets and past random white sandy beaches really kept us captivated by the landscape. We rode out to Claggan Island along another beach, this one a mix of pebbles and sand. After a wander out to a rocky point, we then took in the road to the end of the Belmullet headland. 

Lunch was at the weather station that changed the date of the D Day landings. The weather man here, reported high winds and poor weather, which had the effect of pushing the landings back a day. Nothing so dramatic for us though, we just got to watch a school of dolphins drifting by as we ate lunch.

Carrowteige is a headland where peat cutting is still a big thing. We managed to get right to the cliff edges to take photos of Kid Island and the bikes, before going for a wander.

The end of the day saw us finding a small promontory overlooking a small bay. People were wild swimming until around 8pm, so we chilled and pitched our tents, drinking wine and just enjoying the sound of people splashing in the water.

A fire lit, we talked utter shite and watched the sunset.

Ireland: John Wayne, Drystone Walls and More Beach Riding

 We headed around to Westport, where I'd been before and had Guinness and oysters at the bar on my last Ireland trip. I thought I might be on familiar round, but I didn't really recognise any of it. 

Gareth knew the area well though, so he acted as a tour guide and took me to Cong, which is where the statue of John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara stands celebrating the film, the Quiet Man. The town also has loads of beautiful old buildings. 

En route, I kept stopping as there were some unique and interesting drystone walls, something Gareth took the piss out of me for!

We headed towards Omey Island, via the Sky Road, only to find a tidal beach road running across to it. After a quick tour around, Gareth got out the wooden mallet and we had a filming session of him razzing across with Thor's Hammer leading the charge!

We camped next to a massive beach called the Silver Strand. People were camped all over the place in a farmers field and a car park next to the beach. A run back into Killadoon, some 20 miles away, saw shopping for provisions and wine, which saw us sorted for the night.

Ireland: Causeways, more tyres and a B+B

 We left our castle early this morning, heading towards Galway. Another place had some tyres, which for me was becoming a necessity.  As usual, we took the scenic route via the Tarbert Ferry to cut a bit of a long ride out up and around the Shannon Estuary. As we headed closer into the coast, we stared to see more golf courses adjacent to the beaches. Most of these places have big hotel complexes and lots of expensive cars and the access is often closed off.

We stopped off at Doolin for some food and then moved off to Spanish Point. A place that had a history of seaweed farming and shipwrecks. We bypassed the Cliffs of Mohare and soon found ourselves winding through some amazing rock formations and around the Black Head Clare point. 

As time was cracking on, we made a dash of the last 30 miles to Galway, where a bike shop called Ivors, has a rear tyre for me. Both the tyres for these bikes were expensive, mine was old stock, so a little cheaper because Ivor sold me it at the earlier price.

It was late by the time we were done, but after getting some top tips from the father and son who own Ivor's, we belted out of Galway along the coast to Roundstone. The plan was to eat at a famous fish pub there. Once the traffic all died down, the road got really good and we swept across the southern tip of this peninsula on a fast roll of sweeping bends and superb scenery.

O'Dowd's had a visit from us, before we headed out deciding to find a B+B for the night so we could go back to the pub. Gareth was after live music, but there was none, so beer it was then!!

We actually stayed two nights here, doing a ride up into the Roundstone Bog and then around the mountains up there. Some excellent riding on tarmac roads and we found a couple of dead end Peat Roads to play on a little as well.

Ireland, tyres and beaches

So we eventually found one tyre in Limerick. ADV bikes aren't big things here and tube tyres even less so. The Honda shop does more on quads and lawn mowers, but it did have a dusty tyre that fitted, so as Gareth's bike was more in need than me, we had a bit of fun fitting it as the garage didn't have the time.

Before getting to Limerick though, we found a beach that we could ride on. Now this is a first for me. I've never ridden on sand, so I was super keen to do it as I want to ride across the Sahara in the next 12 months. We did a small distance, then realised we could ride a lot more, so just did. Gareth had his drone with him, so out that came and we had a play... I do love beach riding!!

Our campsite for the night was hidden away in a ruined castle. We thought that if we tucked the bikes around the back wall, we'd be out of sight. How wrong we were, we had about 10 visitors that night, all staying for a chat and giggle. One local family told us their family history, two guys came on bikes from further north and we had a gossip, then we met up with a lad heading south and staying in the nearby B+B. We also got a visit from a French couple and a Swiss couple. It turned into the most social of evenings anyone could wish for!!

Ireland, cliffs, quarries and castles...

We're having troubles trying to find tyres now. Ironically, both bikes tyres are wearing really fast, so some hunting around for somewhere with some, saw us in head north to Tralee.. 

En route, we had a bit of a mooch around Kerry Cliffs, having to pay 5 euro each to go for a walk on a cliff top, which seemed a bit odd to us... the cliffs were excellent and I'm sure there must be some great rock climbing there if they are not heavily protected. 

Once away from the cliffs, we headed into a working quarry, some lovely stone and even better views. After a little rock hopping in the car park, we headed next to Ballycarbery Castle

The castle itself now has a closed sign, which we duly ignored and went for a mooch around. There are some narrow passages, several different time periods of building styles and interesting architectural features.

From here, it was on to the hill fort at Cahergall. This has been renovated recently and was a beautiful piece of drystone wall work. The inner walls were all stepped and allowed people to climb up and look down into the central circle, which maybe would have been for meetings etc. Grand place to just sit and watch the world for awhile. We met an Irish couple living in Galway here and had a good chat about all things Ireland.

Our final stop for the day was down into a cove with a fine sandy little beach. After we'd watched the sea and people for awhile, we were on our way back to the bikes when we got chatting to a family swimming there. The two older ladies were just pulling out the wine bottles and a 15 minute chat saw us having a right good banter over a small glass of wine. After one of the guys, who admitted to being a BMW GS rider, made joking comments about our KTM's a good round of pee taking ensued!

The end of the day saw us with no food and nowhere to buy any beer or wine, so we delved into Gareth's stash of dried foods and drank tea whilst watching a seal playing in the bay below us. 

Another fun day on the road but we never sorted the tyres out!

Ireland, Sheep's Head

What a day this turned out to be, not only did we find a great green lane, we also found a remote light house on the end of Sheep's Head Peninsula and the Priests Leap high pass that snaked up through the hills.

Whilst on top of Mount Gabriel yesterday, we chatted to a group of bikers who were Irish, they pointed us at the Sheep's Head Peninsula and mentioned going over Priest's Leap. So that was us searching for these on the map. It was pure luck to be honest, a turn of a corner to get off the main A road and the next thing we knew, there were signs saying steep gradients, take care etc etc. Happy Days.

 

From here, we headed up to Barley Lake. At first, we thought it would be on a dirt track, but it was actually tarmac, albeit knackered in a lot of places. At the top, we parked the bikes and walked over to stand on some rocks overlooking the lake. It would have been a great place to camp had it not been too early in the day...

Stone circles and an ancient hill fort in the middle of a field was up next, then after  mooch and a lot of unanswered questions about their history, we headed off to Inchinaleega where there is a cable car across the sound to Dursey island. It was closed when we arrived, but both the wind and headland were well on form as we stood thinking, apart from the wind, it would be another good place to camp!

We ended the day a little late, but on one of the best camp spots we found for the whole trip. A fire followed, after scavenging along the rocky inlets for driftwood, then wine, then fishing, (where I lost the lure!) 

Oh well, back to the wine...